Trees are very much living organisms which means that they need food to survive. But trees are heterotrophic, which means that they depend on themselves for food. To manufacture this food, the trees depend on a complex process of photosynthesis. Usually, the key components in this case are carbon dioxide, sunlight and water. If either of these misses, the process cannot go on.
By description, photosynthesis is defined as, in plain English, as the process that occurs in green plants, where carbon dioxide and water are converted to sugar, in the presence of sunlight. Oxygen is the by-product of the process. The whole process occurs in the leaves of plants, or with more precision, the chloroplasts. Sunlight energy harvested is stored as ATP which is used to power the reaction. Photosynthesis is divided into two reactions; a light reaction and a dark reaction. The light reaction happens in the chloroplasts in the thylakoid membrane. Usually the light energy is converted to chemical energy which is more readily usable. The dark reaction takes place in the stroma and it’s the process where the carbon dioxide taken in is converted to glucose. This process is not dependent on light, but it needs the chemical energy formed in the light reaction so that it can occur.
Photoautotrophs, like trees and other green plants, depend on sunlight to power up the process of photosynthesis. But there are other organisms that depend on organic matter as a source of carbon instead of relying on carbon dioxide. Scientifically, these kinds of organisms are called Photoheterotrophs. There are some steps in the process of photosynthesis that are not quite understood in detail as such, but its believed from a general perspective that light energy converts carbon dioxide in the presence of an electron donor, which is water to sugar and oxygen. The three environmental factors affecting photosynthesis are light wavelength, the concentration or amount of carbon dioxide available and the environmental temperature, and to some effect humidity.
From most the aforementioned details, it can easily be deduced that photosynthesis is important for more than just food manufacturing. Oxygen is produced which is a great thing since all members of the animal kingdom depend on it for survival. The process also takes up carbon dioxide, hence ridding it from the environment. That is a necessary step in prevention of global warming as it reduces the gas’ levels in the atmosphere.
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