Video Transcript
Oxygen is a product of
photosynthesis. How can this oxygen be reused by
plants? (A) As a source of nutrients, (B)
as a reactant in aerobic respiration, (C) as a reactant in translocation, or (D) as
a reactant in the synthesis of new proteins.
During photosynthesis, plants use
the reactants carbon dioxide and water in the presence of light energy to produce
glucose and oxygen. Glucose can be used to build up
various larger carbohydrates for the plant to use, or alternatively it can be broken
down in cellular respiration to release energy. The oxygen that is produced through
photosynthesis can either be released into the atmosphere, or some can be combined
with glucose in a specific type of cellular respiration called aerobic
respiration.
Aerobic respiration describes the
chemical reaction through which the reactants oxygen and glucose are transformed
into the products carbon dioxide and water. This reaction releases energy,
which can then be used by the plant for other life processes. As you can probably tell, in
plants, photosynthesis and aerobic respiration go hand in hand, as the products
generated by one of these reactions can be reused as the reactants of the other
reaction, and vice versa.
With this information, we can
deduce that the correct answer to this question is (B). The oxygen that is produced in
photosynthesis can be reused as a reactant for aerobic respiration.
