Photosynthesis And Photosynthesis

Sunlight fuels the planet and photosynthesis converts that solar energy into energy that plants transfer into the food chain. Photosynthesis provides plants with sugars and plant proteins that are important for animals as well as for human agriculture. Most people know the general idea behind it, but there are so many complicated processes that make up the entirety of photosynthesis. Different aspects of photosynthesis, the photosystems, and the photosynthetic pathways are still studied today because not everything about how they work and operate is known.

There exists three different chemical pathways through which photosynthesis can occur: C3, C4, and Crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM). These pathways happen during the Calvin cycle of photosynthesis. The CAM pathway has developed in plants that live in arid conditions, yet the C3 and C4 pathways can coexist in many different environments. What is interesting about these two pathways is that the C4 pathway seems to be more effective at producing sugars and fixing carbon than the C3 pathway. Why is it then that the C3 pathway is still the most common when it doesn’t appear as reliable or effective? Are these plants still transitioning into a more advanced chemical pathway or are there other advantages to being a C3 plant that outway the efficiency of sugar production found in the C4 pathway?

The C3 pathway would have been the most useful in the early days of the planet. Until photosynthesis evolved, oxygen was not common in the Earth’s atmosphere. Oxygen can and will enter the plant’s system during the light-independent part of photosynthesis, the Calvin Cycle, and the instead of the first, fixed carbon compound being a three carbon molecule, it will produce a two carbon molecule....

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... pathways have their place in their own environments. One is not conclusively better than the other. Both pathways have their pros and cons. Even though the C4 may be more efficient than the C3 pathway under ideal conditions, these ideal conditions cannot always be met. Nature does not create these conditions nor can agriculturalists cannot provide these conditions all the time even in controlled settings like a greenhouse. The costs may outweigh the benefits in the long run.

Efficiency comes at the price of using more energy to bypass photorespiration and not being adapted, thus far, to the changing global climate. More research can be done to look into using the efficient C4 enzymes in C3 plants without the need to worry about changing climate or atmospheric carbon levels. Perhaps research can also been done to observe the usage of energy in both types of pathways.