- published: 14 Mar 2013
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C3 carbon fixation is a metabolic pathway for carbon fixation in photosynthesis. This process converts carbon dioxide and ribulose bisphosphate (RuBP, a 5-carbon sugar) into 3-phosphoglycerate through the following reaction:
This reaction occurs in all plants as the first step of the Calvin-Benson cycle. In C4 plants, carbon dioxide is drawn out of malate and into this reaction rather than directly from the air.
Plants that survive solely on C3 fixation (C3 plants) tend to thrive in areas where sunlight intensity is moderate, temperatures are moderate, carbon dioxide concentrations are around 200 ppm or higher, and ground water is plentiful. The C3 plants, originating during Mesozoic and Paleozoic eras, predate the C4 plants and still represent approximately 95% of Earth's plant biomass. C3 plants lose 97% of the water taken up through their roots to transpiration. Examples include rice and barley.
C3 plants cannot grow in hot areas because RuBisCO incorporates more oxygen into RuBP as temperatures increase. This leads to photorespiration, which leads to a net loss of carbon and nitrogen from the plant and can, therefore, limit growth. In dry areas, C3 plants shut their stomata to reduce water loss, but this stops CO2 from entering the leaves and, therefore, reduces the concentration of CO2 in the leaves. This lowers the CO2:O2 ratio and, therefore, also increases photorespiration. C4 and CAM plants have adaptations that allow them to survive in hot and dry areas, and they can, therefore, outcompete C3 plants.
In biology, carbon fixation is the reduction of inorganic carbon (carbon dioxide) to organic compounds by living organisms. The most prominent example is photosynthesis. Organisms that grow by fixing carbon are called autotrophs—plants for example. Heterotrophs, like animals, are organisms that grow using the carbon fixed by autotrophs. Fixed carbon, reduced carbon, and organic carbon all mean organic compounds.
Photosynthesis uses energy from sunlight to drive an autotrophic carbon fixation pathway.
Oxygenic photosynthesis is used by the chief primary producers—plants, algae, and cyanobacteria. They contain the pigment chlorophyll, and use the Calvin cycle to fix carbon autotrophically.
Somewhere between 3.5 and 2.3 billion years ago, cyanobacteria evolved oxygenic photosynthesis. The process works like this:
The essential innovation is the first step, the dissociation of water into electrons, protons, and free oxygen. This allows the use of water, one of the most abundant substances on Earth, as an electron donor—as a source of reducing power. The release of free oxygen is a side-effect of enormous consequence. The first step uses the energy of sunlight to oxidize water to O2, and, ultimately, to produce ATP