A field guide to living on light

The Descent of Light

Every autotroph builds its body from thin air — CO₂ pulled into biomass. Most run on sunlight; a few run on rust and brimstone. Start with the family tree, then open any group to watch its share of the Sun thin from 100% down to the few percent that survives as new growth.

* facultatively mixotrophic — can also eat organic carbon click a leaf → energy-flow diagram
Figures follow Zhu, Long & Ort (2008/2010) and the Hall & Rao energy budget. Organism images are stored locally under images/ (credits in CREDITS.md); deep links go to Wikipedia.
Oxygenic photoautotroph

 

 
theoretical max

Percentages are of the original incident sunlight and follow published maxima; realised field values are lower. Click any loss for the mechanism and sources.