PhotosynthesisThe chemical equation for photosynthesis is 6CO2 + 6H2O --> C6H12O6 + 6O2. This is important because plants, such as cushion plants in the Arctic, are producers by doing this method. During the day, they take in light energy, which is called the light reaction, and change it into chemical energy. They do this with the chlorophyll, which is located in the chloroplast, which is in a leaf cell, which makes up a leaf. During the night, they make sugars which are then used for themselves. Those nutrients are then eaten by the primary consumers, like the deer or fish, which are then eaten by secondaries, then the apex predators, which then die and decompose into the soil. If plants didn't do photosynthesis, then everything would be thrown off balance and food webs would become different. Primary consumers couldn't eat any plants, so secondaries would only get the nutrients from the primaries, and so on and so forth.
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Cellular ResipirationAll living things do cellular respiration, and the chemical equation is the same as photosynthesis, but it is reversed. C6H12O6 + 6O2 --> 6CO2 + 6H2O is the equation. Cellular respiration is important because it is how food is broken down. An organelle called mitochondria is the thing that breaks down the food particles into sugars that will be used for cells. Since polar bears are apex predators in the Arctic, they will break down all of the nutrients that were contained in the food they ate, whether it be a seal, or other things if they couldn't find any food sources. This means they are indirectly eating everything that its prey ate.
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Carbon CycleAll living and some non-living things are made of carbon, meaning that carbon is basically everywhere. There's also the fact that carbon is never lost, just recycled and put in different places of the world. Carbon can be attached to oxygen which happens through cellular respiration, as the chemical equation says that oxygen is transformed into carbon dioxide. Plants then do photosynthesis to make its sugars, only to get eaten by consumers. Once those consumers die, decomposers, such as bacteria, return the carbon to the ground/air and then used by plants again. This makes the Carbon Cycle happen basically forever. Also, since there are fewer land animals in the Arctic than in other places, there seems to be fewer plants located there, since carbon dioxide is not as plentiful.
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