Biology › Section D · Energy: metabolism, respiration, photosynthesis › Topic D.9
Overview of photosynthesis
Every calorie in your dinner — and every joule in a lump of coal — began as sunlight packed into a sugar by a leaf, an alga, or a cyanobacterium. Photosynthesis is the gateway through which energy enters the living world, and this overview covers who can do it, where it happens, and its two-stage architecture.
In this topic
- Who cooks, who waits at the table
- Why nothing else substitutes
- The equation and its atom budget
- Worked example: auditing the equation's atoms
- The leaf's plumbing
- Inside the chloroplast
- Two stages, one factory
- Worked example: why a dry day starves the Calvin cycle
- Respiration's mirror twin
- Common mistakes to avoid
- Key takeaways
This topic is part of Wuanberri Pro. Checking your access…