How is photosynthesis related to chemical energy in coal?

How can photosynthesis lead to the storage of energy in both plants and animals?

• my question is bio 20 is... "energy storage in the biosphere can be seen as a balanece between the processes of photosynthesis and cellular respiration. explain how photosynthesis can lead to the STORAGE OF ENERGY in both plants and animals. the bolded part is circled... and on the side it says "hint: describe the conversions. how do plants store their food?"

• Answer:

  Energy is stored in the form of biomass. Biomass is organic matter, minus the weight of water (which has no nutritional value, and provides no energy). Photosynthesis produces energy for the plant by converting CO2 and H2O into Glucose (sugar), water vapor, and oxygen. Plants, overtime, produce enough energy that the current cells can sustain themselves, so they reproduce into new cells through cell division (which makes the plant bigger). As the plant grows over time it increases in biomass. Eventually, a primary consumer will come along and eat this plant, causing a transfer of biomass from the plant to the consumer. But, the downside here is that only 10% of the energy that is present in the biomass that is devoured is transfered into energy in the new organism. This is caused by biological magnification. Every organism is part of a trophic level - Primary Consumer (things that eat plants), Secondary Consumer (things that eat the things that eat plants), and Tertairy consumers (who are the head of the food chain). Each level you go up there is a decrease of 10% biomass energy that is carried over to the next level. The organisms on top of the chain require larger amounts of biomass to eat due to the energy requirements they have. So basically - Every organism has biomass in them, which is in return energy. The more biomass, the larger amount of energy that the organism is made up of. Now if your talking about cellular respiration: Cellular respiration is simple the process of a cell operating and getting rid of its byproducts (such as CO2). ALL CELLS (including plant cells) GO THROUGH CELLULAR RESPIRATION. When CO2 is released from a cell into the atmosphere it lingers there until it is taken in by a plant during photosynthesis... If you really want to get into detail about this part I would Google the "Carbon Cycle" and check a few of those links to get a better picture of what that's about. Hope this gives you a decent concept of the transfer of energy from a plant's photosynthesis process to any other organism.