where do plants get carbon from? where does the carbon go when plants die?
104088
>>>>>where do plants get carbon from?\n\nPlants obtain their carbon directly  from the air in the form of carbon dioxide.\n\n>>>>where does the carbon go when plants die?\n\nThat depends entirely on what happens after the plant dies. In a natural forest most of the plant is eaten by animals and fungi. The carbon becomes a part of the animal and fungal body for a while. Some of it will end up back in the air as a result of the animals breating it out as carbon dioxide, some of it will remain in the soil as humus and soil carbon.\n\nFire will tend to short circuit that process and convert most of the carbon into carbon dioxide. however some wil remain behind in the ground as charcoal.\n\nIn a managed forest the carbon wil be largely taken away as timber. That carbon will be stored as furniture or buildings or paper. Then it will most likely be dumoped in a landfill and covered with soil. Once ther some of it will find its way back into the air as methane but most of it it will sit under the ground and gradually convert to coal.
981867
Yes.  All living things are constantly exchanging carbon-14 with the environment, so the ratio is the same.  When an organism dies, the exchange stops, allowing the time of death to be estimated based on the amount of C-14 that has not decayed.
617550
Where do all plants get their energy?\n\nnutrients from the soil for plants in the ground, sunlight for plants with green leaves.
365915
The sun is the earth's largest source of reliable energy.  Plants have green leaves that absorb and trap sunlight and convert that light into chemical energy; namely starches that other animals eat.\n\nThe sunlight is converted to starches by chlorophyll, a green substance in the leaves of green plants.  Carbon dioxide gas molecules (CO2) in our atmosphere is combined into sugar; sugar is combined into starches.  Wood is a form of starch called cellulose.\n\nSecondly, water is "split" (chopped into three pieces) releasing oxygen (gas) by photosynthesis.  So plants provide us oxygen by "splitting" water; and plants provide us sugar by "fixing" carbon dioxide.  We eat the plants or we animals that eat the plants.  This is how we get our energy.\n\nSo, cows are animals that eat grass; in so doing they gather sugar energy and live.  We eat cows, for example.  Or, certain insects eat plants; some fish eat those insects and then we eat the fish...so on and so forth.
802594
Animals inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. Green plants are the only plants that produce oxygen and make food, which is called photosynthesis. Photosynthesis means ''putting together with light.'' This takes place in chloroplasts, which have chlorophyll in them. Chlorophyll absorbs the sunlight. From sunlight, green plants combine carbon dioxide and water to make sugar and oxygen. Green plants use sugar to make starch, fats, and proteins. There are tiny pores called stomota. Oxygen and carbon dioxide enter and leave through the stomata.\nhttp://library.thinkquest.org/3715/photo3.html\n\nImportance of Photosynthesis\n\nAnimals and plants both synthesize fats and proteins from carbohydrates; thus glucose is a basic energy source for all living organisms. The oxygen released (with water vapor, in transpiration) as a photosynthetic byproduct, principally of phytoplankton, provides most of the atmospheric oxygen vital to respiration in plants and animals, and animals in turn produce carbon dioxide necessary to plants. Photosynthesis can therefore be considered the ultimate source of life for nearly all plants and animals by providing the source of energy that drives all their metabolic processes.
287730
CO2 is moved into cells that are not respiring, so that when the stomata are closed, the plant has CO2 available for respiration, and O2 is not lost from the stomata being open.  C4 plants are found in hot and dry environments where losing O2 would be a disadvantage
802733
Plants DO breathe oxygen, the same way we do. Respiration is the most effective energy producing process there is.\nPlants, however, can perform another process (photosynthesis) in which they take up CO2 and use the energy of sunlight to build up sugars and starches from this CO2. THEN they can use these starches in the process of respiration, the same way we do (we take sugars and "use" oxygen to take out the energy contained in them)\nSo the only difference betwen us and plants is that they make their own fuel out of CO2 , but we must eat it. But we both breathe oxygen in order to get the energy out of it.\nAs to why the don't breathe hydrogen... you'd have to ask god.... but normally when hydrogen combines with things it requires energy instead of giving rise to it, so it wouldn't be too advantageous\nSo it's not that we produce the CO2 so plants can live. Plants could live without animals, we're the parasites here hehehehe
867542
In the water cycle, water falls to the earth in the form of precipitation.  Plant roots absorb the water, which is then transported through the xylem vessels to the leaves.  There, photosynthesis takes place.  Each water molecule is split up, forming hydrogen ions, oxygen, and electrons.  The electrons are used to create ATP for the dark reactions.  In end, a three-carbon sugar is formed, which combines with another three-carbon sugar to form glucose.  Besides photosynthesis, water seeps into the ground and bodies of water.  It stays there for organisms to use.  Much of it eventually evaporates.\nCO2 is used in photosynthesis to form glucose (the glucose's carbon is from CO2).  Glucose is eventually broken down to form ATP.  Animals store glucose in the form of gylcogen, whereas plants tore it in the form of starch.  Carbon is also present in the atmosphere in the form of other gases (including, I think, greenhouse gases).  It is also present in decaying organic matter, returning to the atmosphere in the form of gas.
815771
Well plants are organisms that don't breathe in oxygen. They breathe in carbon dioxide.
272577
Carbon dioxide, because that is the raw material required for photosynthesis
1100760
Plants are living things, and like us, need noses to breathe.  The 'noses' of plants are tiny holes called stomata (s), stoma (p) at the underside of leaves.  These stoma help the plant exchange gases with its surrounding.  Oxygen is produced during the day as the byproduct of photosynthesis, when the plant takes in carbon dioxide in the presence of sunlight to make food.  At night, the plant rests and does not make any more food, thus consuming oxygen.  This whole process is called respiration.
499465
A tree grows by photosynthesis: it combines carbon dioxide from the air with water, which it takes in through its roots, to produce glucose, which is converted into starch to be stored in the leaves. Minerals are also taken in through the roots which combine with glucose to produce amino acids, proteins and other stuffs that the tree needs e.g. phosphorus for DNA in the cell nucleus.\n\nThe equation for photosynthesis is:\n\n6CO2 + 6H2O -> C6H12O6 + 6O2\n\nWith research you should be able to find other equations for processes going on inside the tree.\n\nI have not described the first stages of the tree's life, i.e. germination. The increase in mass here is due to the uptake of water.
960492
Carbon dioxide is food for plants, more CO2, more assimilation.
48937
Photosynthesis is the process by which plants, some bacteria, and some protistans use the energy from sunlight to produce sugar, which cellular respiration converts into ATP, the "fuel" used by all living things.
206070
This is a wild ass guess, but maybe where it's too cold for dying plants to decompose.  Instead of mature soil, you get peat.
319159
C and O2 is turned into CO2 by breathing\nCO2 is made into C (food) and O2 (byproduct) by photosynthesis in plants.
783591
Recycling and pollution control. The fuel production company generates CO2, which it then feeds to plants. The plants absorb CO2, reducing the  company's CO2 emissions. In addition, the plants convert the CO2 into cellulose, which can be burned as fuel.