Photosynthesis is a system of biological processes by which photosynthetic organisms,such as most plants,algae,and cyanobacteria,convert light energy,typically from sunlight,into the chemical energy necessary to fuel their metabolism. Photosynthesis usually refers to oxygenic photosynthesis,a process that produces oxygen. Photosynthetic organisms store the chemical energy so produced within intracellular organic compounds like sugars,glycogen,cellulose and starches. To use this stored chemical energy,an organism's cells metabolize the organic compounds through cellular respiration. Photosynthesis plays a critical role in producing and maintaining the oxygen content of the Earth's atmosphere,and it supplies most of the biological energy necessary for complex life on Earth.
A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals,whose polyps cluster in groups.
Seagrasses are the only flowering plants which grow in marine environments. There are about 60 species of fully marine seagrasses which belong to four families,all in the order Alismatales. Seagrasses evolved from terrestrial plants which recolonised the ocean 70 to 100 million years ago.
Prochlorophyta is a group of photosynthetic bacteria,an important component of picoplankton. These oligotrophic organisms are abundant in nutrient poor tropical waters and use a unique photosynthetic pigment,divinyl-chlorophyll,to absorb light and acquire energy. Prochlorophyta lack red and blue phycobilin pigments and have stacked thylakoids,making them distinctly different from Cyanobacteria,but some authors consider them as part of the Cyanobacteria,as the group Prochlorales.
Photosystems are functional and structural units of protein complexes involved in photosynthesis. Together they carry out the primary photochemistry of photosynthesis:the absorption of light and the transfer of energy and electrons. Photosystems are found in the thylakoid membranes of plants,algae,and cyanobacteria. These membranes are located inside the chloroplasts of plants and algae,and in the cytoplasmic membrane of photosynthetic bacteria. There are two kinds of photosystems:PSI and PSII.
Chlorophyll d is a form of chlorophyll,identified by Harold Strain and Winston Manning in 1943. It was unambiguously identified in Acaryochloris marina in the 1990s. It is present in cyanobacteria which use energy captured from sunlight for photosynthesis. Chl d absorbs far-red light,at 710 nm wavelength,just outside the optical range. An organism that contains Chl d is adapted to an environment such as moderately deep water,where it can use far red light for photosynthesis,although there is not a lot of visible light.
A seagrass meadow or seagrass bed is an underwater ecosystem formed by seagrasses. Seagrasses are marine (saltwater) plants found in shallow coastal waters and in the brackish waters of estuaries. Seagrasses are flowering plants with stems and long green,grass-like leaves. They produce seeds and pollen and have roots and rhizomes which anchor them in seafloor sand.
Photoinhibition is light-induced reduction in the photosynthetic capacity of a plant,alga,or cyanobacterium. Photosystem II (PSII) is more sensitive to light than the rest of the photosynthetic machinery,and most researchers define the term as light-induced damage to PSII. In living organisms,photoinhibited PSII centres are continuously repaired via degradation and synthesis of the D1 protein of the photosynthetic reaction center of PSII. Photoinhibition is also used in a wider sense,as dynamic photoinhibition,to describe all reactions that decrease the efficiency of photosynthesis when plants are exposed to light.
The following outline is an overview of and topical guide to botany,the biological academic discipline involving the study of plants.
Posidonia is a genus of flowering plants. It contains nine species of marine plants ("seagrass"),found in the seas of the Mediterranean and around the south coast of Australia.
Phyllospadix,commonly known as surfgrass,is a genus of seagrass,a flowering plant in the family Zosteraceae,described as a genus in 1840. Phyllospadix grows in marine waters along the coasts of the temperate North Pacific.
Enhalus is a monotypic genus of marine flowering plants. The sole species is Enhalus acoroides. Enhalus is a large seagrass native to coastal waters of the tropical Indian and Western Pacific Oceans. It is the only species of seagrass that does aerial surface pollination in which the pollen and the styles remain dry. Enhalus is surface pollinated with male flowers that detach from the plant to float on the surface until they reach a female flower where pollination can occur. Enhalus acoroides is considered a slow-growing,"climax" species.
Thalassia is a marine seagrass genus comprising two known species.
Thalassia testudinum,commonly known as turtlegrass,is a species of marine seagrass. It forms meadows in shallow sandy or muddy locations in the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. Turtle grass and other seagrasses form meadows which are important habitats and feeding grounds. The grass is eaten by turtles and herbivorous fish,supports many epiphytes,and provides habitat for juvenile fish and many invertebrate taxa.
Min Chen is an Australian plant physiologist. She was born in China and educated in Northeast Normal University China - BSc in 1984 and MSc in 1987 and received her PhD in 2003 from The University of Sydney Australia. She is a full professor and Australian Research Council Future Fellow in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Sydney. Her research is primarily concerned with elucidating the molecular and biochemical mechanism of the energy-storing reactions in photosynthetic organisms,especially the function of novel photopigments in oxygenic photosynthetic bacteria.
Marine botany is the study of flowering vascular plant species and marine algae that live in shallow seawater of the open ocean and the littoral zone,along shorelines of the intertidal zone and coastal wetlands,even in low-salinity brackish water of estuaries.
Prochloron is a genus of unicellular oxygenic photosynthetic prokaryotes commonly found as an extracellular symbiont on coral reefs,particularly in didemnid ascidians. Part of the phylum cyanobacteria,it was theorized that Prochloron is a predecessor of the photosynthetic components,chloroplasts,found in photosynthetic eukaryotic cells. However this theory is largely refuted by phylogenetic studies which indicate Prochloron is not on the same line of descent that lead to chloroplast-containing algae and land plants.
Halodule uninervis is a species of seagrass in the family Cymodoceaceae. It is native to the western Pacific and Indian Oceans. Common names include narrowleaf seagrass in English and a'shab bahriya in Arabic.
Zostera novazelandica Setchell is a species of seagrass in the family Zosteraceae found on the shores of New Zealand. It is regarded as a distinct species by some authors but considered as a synonym of Zostera muelleri Irmisch ex Ascherson by others. The Maori names for Zostera novazelandica are karepō,nana,rehia,and rimurehia.
Marine primary production is the chemical synthesis in the ocean of organic compounds from atmospheric or dissolved carbon dioxide. It principally occurs through the process of photosynthesis,which uses light as its source of energy,but it also occurs through chemosynthesis,which uses the oxidation or reduction of inorganic chemical compounds as its source of energy. Almost all life on Earth relies directly or indirectly on primary production. The organisms responsible for primary production are called primary producers or autotrophs.
