Energy Cycles
The Need for Energy
- All organisms must be active to survive - growing, responding to environmental change, dealing with competition and predators, making food and reproducing.
- Metabolic activity is constantly occurring, some examples include active transport, anabolic reactions, movement bought about by cilia, flagella or contractile fibres.
- Energy cannot be created or destroys, it is simply transferred from organism to organism in different forms.
Photosynthesis
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Respiration
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Importance of Carbon Hydrogen Bonds
- Energy is required to break bonds.
- Energy is released when bonds are formed.
- The same quantity of energy is involved whether a bond is being broken or formed (bond energy).
- Endothermic reactions require energy, exothermic reactions release energy.
- Inorganic molecules such as CO2 and O2 require a lot of energy to break, but release a lot of energy when bonds are reformed.
- Macromolecules such as glucose require less energy to break, but release less energy when reformed.
- Organic macromolecules contain a lot of carbon-hydrogen bonds