FLOW OF ENERGY AND MATTER IN ECOSYSTEMS

Prepared by: Mr. Joselito Christian Paulus M. Villanueva

Lesson 1. Photosynthetic Processes
Key questions:
 What are the raw materials of photosynthesis?
 Where does it occur?
 What are the benefits that other organisms get from photosynthesis?

Introduction:
Life on earth is solar powered. The
chloroplast from plants capture light energy that
has traveled 150 million kilometers from the sun
and convert it to chemical energy that is stored
in sugar and other molecules. This conversion
process is called photosynthesis. Let’s begin by
placing photosynthesis in an ecological context.
Photosynthesis nourishes almost the
entire living world directly or indirectly. An
organism acquires the organic compounds it
uses for energy by one of two major modes:
autotrophic nutrition or heterotrophic nutrition.
Autotrophs are “self-feeders”, they sustain
themselves without eating anything derived
from other organisms. Autotrophs produce their
organic molecules from CO2 and other inorganic
raw materials obtained from the environment. They are the ultimate sources of organic
compounds for other organisms, and for this reason, they are referred to as producers of the
biosphere.
Heterotrophs obtain their organic material by the second major mode of nutrition.
Unable to make their own food, they live on compounds produced by other organisms.
Heterotrophs are the biosphere’s consumers. Almost all heterotrophs, including humans, are
completely dependent, either directly or indirectly, on photoautotrophs for food – and also for
oxygen, a by-product of photosynthesis.

Photosynthesis

As mentioned, the energy from the sun enters the biosphere by the process of
photosynthesis. This is the process whereby plants and other photosynthetic organisms such
as algae and other types of
bacteria use light energy to make
glucose. It can be defined as
physico-chemical process by which
photosynthetic organisms use
light energy to initiate the
synthesis of organic compounds.
The green pigment called
chlorophyll traps light energy from
the sum and converts it to
chemical energy. Chlorophylls are
found in the membrane of the
plant’s chloroplast. In the
chloroplast, light energy is used to
manufacture simple sugar known
as glucose.
During the process of photosynthesis, light energy is trapped and converted to chemical
energy where a series of chemical reactions use some of this energy to split hydrogen and
oxygen in water. As a result, plants release most of the oxygen in the environment while
hydrogen combines with carbon dioxide to form glucose. A series of steps requiring chemical
energy is needed to form glucose. Some of this energy is stored in glucose molecules.
In short, photosynthesis is simply the process by which organisms convert solar energy
to chemical energy, its chemical equation is:

6H2O + 6CO2 + LIGHT ENERGY C6H12O6 + 6O2

What is a Chloroplast?

All green parts of a plant,

including green stems and unripened
fruit, have chloroplasts, but the leaves
are the major sites of photosynthesis
in most plants. There are about half a
million chloroplasts in a chunk of leaf
with a top surface area of 1 mm2.
Chloroplasts are found mainly in the
cells of the mesophyll, the tissue in
the interior of the leaf. Carbon dioxide enters the leaf, and oxygen exits, by way of microscopic
pores called stomata (singular, stoma; from the Greek, meaning “mouth”). Water absorbed by
the roots is delivered to the leaves in veins. Leaves also use veins to export sugar to roots and
other nonphotosynthetic parts of the plant.

A typical mesophyll cell has about 30–40 chloroplasts, each organelle measuring about
2–4 μm by 4–7 μm. A chloroplast has an envelope of two membranes surrounding a dense
fluid called the stroma. Suspended within the stroma is a third membrane system, made up of
sacs called thylakoids, which segregates the stroma from the thylakoid space inside these
sacs. In some places, thylakoid sacs are stacked in columns called grana (singular, granum).
Chlorophyll, the green pigment that gives leaves their color, resides in the thylakoid
membranes of the chloroplast. It is the light energy absorbed by chlorophyll that drives the
synthesis of organic moleculesin the chloroplast. Now that we have looked at the sites of
photosynthesis in plants, we are ready to look more closely at the process of photosynthesis

Two stages of Photosynthesis

The equation for photosynthesis is a deceptively simple summary of a very complex
process. Actually, photosynthesis is not a single process, but two processes, each with multiple
steps. These two stages of photosynthesis are known as the light reactions (the photo part of
photosynthesis) and the Calvin cycle (the synthesis part).

1. The light- dependent reactions which occur at the thylakoid membranes and
compartment

The light reactions are the steps of photosynthesis that convert solar energy to chemical
energy. Water is split, providing a source of electrons and protons (hydrogen ions, H+) and
giving off O2 as a by-product. Light absorbed by chlorophyll drives a transfer of the electrons
and hydrogen ions from water to an acceptor called NADP_ (nicotinamide adenine
dinucleotide phosphate), where they are temporarily stored. The electron acceptor NADP_ is
first cousin to NAD_, which functions as an electron carrier in cellular respiration; the two
molecules differ only by the presence of an extra phosphate group in the NADP_ molecule.
The light reactions use solar power to reduce NADP_ to NADPH by adding a pair of electrons
along with an H_. The light reactions also generate ATP, using chemiosmosis to power the
addition of a phosphate group to ADP, a process called photophosphorylation. Thus, light
energy is initially converted to chemical energy in the form of two compounds: NADPH, a
source of electrons as “reducing power” that can be passed along to an electron acceptor,
reducing it, and ATP, the versatile energy currency of cells. Notice that the light reactions
produce no sugar; that happens in the second stage of photosynthesis, the Calvin cycle.
 2. The light-independent reactions (the
dark reactions or the Calvin Cycle)
which occur in the stroma.

The Calvin cycle is named for Melvin

Calvin, who, along with his colleagues, began
to clarify its steps in the late 1940s. The
cycle begins by incorporating CO2 from the
air into organic molecules already present in
the chloroplast. This initial incorporation of
carbon into organic compounds is known as
carbon fixation. The Calvin cycle then
reduces the fixed carbon to carbohydrate by
the addition of electrons. The reducing
power is provided by NADPH, which
acquired its cargo of electrons in the light
reactions.
To convert CO2 to carbohydrate, the
Calvin cycle also requires chemical energy in the form of ATP, which is also generated by the
light reactions. Thus, it is the Calvin cycle that makes sugar, but it can do so only with the help
of the NADPH and ATP produced by the light reactions. The metabolic steps of the Calvin cycle
are sometimes referred to
as the dark reactions, or
light-independent
reactions, because none of
the steps requires light
directly.
Nevertheless, the
Calvin cycle in most plants
occurs during daylight, for
only then can the light
reactions provide the
NADPH and ATP that the
Calvin cycle requires. In
essence, the chloroplast
uses light energy to make
sugar by coordinating the
two stages of
photosynthesis.
 Lesson 2. Cellular Respiration
Key questions:
 What happens to the food after it has been digested?
 How can the cells derive energy from the food that we eat?

Introduction:

Living cells require transfusions of energy from outside sources to perform their many
tasks—for example, assembling polymers, pumping substances across membranes, moving,
and reproducing. The energy stored in the organic molecules of food ultimately comes from
the sun. Energy flows into an ecosystem as sunlight and exits as heat; in contrast, the chemical
elements essential to life are recycled. Photosynthesis generates oxygen and organic
molecules used by the mitochondria of eukaryotes (including plants and algae) as fuel for
cellular respiration. Respiration breaks this fuel down, generating ATP.

The waste
products of this type of
respiration, carbon
dioxide and water, are
the raw materials for
photosynthesis. In this
part of the unit, we
consider how cells
harvest the chemical
energy stored in organic
molecules and use it to
generate ATP, the
molecule that drives
most cellular work.
After presenting some
basics about respiration, we will focus on three key pathways of respiration: glycolysis, the
citric acid cycle, and oxidative phosphorylation.

Cellular Respiration

The harvesting of energy from glucose by cellular respiration is a cumulative function of

three metabolic stages:
1. Glycolysis
2. Pyruvate Oxidation and the citric acid cycle (Krebs Cycle)
 3. Oxidative phosphorylation; electron transport chain and chemiosmosis

Biochemists usually reserve the term cellular respiration for stages 2 and 3. We include
glycolysis, however, because most respiring cells deriving energy from glucose use glycolysis to
produce the starting material for the citric acid cycle. As diagrammed, glycolysis and pyruvate
oxidation followed by the citric acid cycle are the catabolic pathways that break down glucose
and other organic fuels. Glycolysis, which occurs in the cytosol, begins the degradation process
by breaking glucose into two molecules of a compound called pyruvate. In eukaryotes,
pyruvate enters the mitochondrion and is oxidized to a compound called acetyl CoA, which
enters the citric acid cycle.
There, the breakdown of glucose to carbon dioxide is completed. Thus, the carbon dioxide
produced by respiration represents fragments of oxidized organic molecules. Some of the
steps of glycolysis and the citric acid cycle are redox reactions in which dehydrogenases
transfer electrons from substrates to NAD+, forming NADH. In the third stage of respiration,
the electron transport chain accepts electrons from the breakdown products of the first two
stages (most often via NADH) and passes these electrons from one molecule to another. At the
end of the chain, the electrons are combined with molecular oxygen and hydrogen ions (H+),
forming water.

Glycolysis

In this process, the 6- carbon sugar, glucose, is broken down into two molecules of a 3-
carbon molecule called pyruvate. This change is accompanied by a net gain of 2 ATP molecules
and 2 NADH molecules.
Krebs cycle

This process occurs in the

mitochondrial matrix and
generates a pool of chemical
energy (ATP, NADH, FADH2) from
the oxidation of pyruvate, the
end pyruvate, the end product of
glycolysis.

Pyruvate is transported
into the mitochondria and loses
carbon dioxide to form acetyl-
CoA, a 2-carbon molecule. When
acetyl CoA is oxidized to carbon
dioxide in the Krebs cycle,
chemical energy is released and
captured in the form of NADH,
FADH2 and ATP

Oxidative Phosphorylation via Electron Transport Chain

The electron transport chain allows the release of the large amount of chemical energy
stored in reduced NAD+ (NADH) reduced FAD (FADH2).
Fermentation

All of the cells are able

synthesize ATP through the
process of glycolysis. In most
cells, when oxygen is not present
(anaerobic), pyruvate is
metabolized in a process called
fermentation.
Fermentation complements
glycolysis and makes it possible
for ATP to be continually
produced in the absence of
oxygen. By oxidizing the NADH
produced in glycolysis,
fermentation regenerates NAD+,
which can take part in glycolysis
once again to produce more ATP