Final answer:
Autotrophs create their own food and store energy in carbohydrates through photosynthesis, while heterotrophs consume other organisms for energy. Both use cellular respiration to break down food molecules into ATP, requiring oxygen and releasing CO2 and water as byproducts, with this exchange contributing to the carbon cycle.
Step-by-step explanation:
Autotrophs and Heterotrophs in Cellular Respiration
Both autotrophs and heterotrophs play essential roles in the process of cellular respiration, which is the process by which cells obtain energy from food. Autotrophs, such as plants, algae, and certain bacteria, synthesize their own food using photosynthesis and then break down these food molecules in cellular respiration to obtain ATP, the cellular energy currency. Heterotrophs, including humans and all animals, consume other organisms to get these high-energy carbon compounds and then metabolize them through cellular respiration to produce ATP, utilizing oxygen and releasing carbon dioxide and water as byproducts.
Cellular respiration can be summed up by the chemical equation:
C6H12O6 + 6O2 → 6CO2 + 6H2O + Energy, indicating how glucose and oxygen are converted into carbon dioxide, water, and energy in the form of ATP. By sharing resources—autotrophs producing food and oxygen, and heterotrophs utilizing that food and oxygen—there is a constant exchange of materials, vital for the carbon cycle which connects all living organisms.
Ultimately, whether an organism is a heterotroph or an autotroph, it needs to break down carbohydrate molecules to access the energy they store. This energy is then used to perform life functions, and CO2 produced from this process becomes the 'building block' that autotrophs use to build more complex organic molecules like glucose through photosynthesis or chemoautotrophy, closing the energy cycle.