Question

Are Protists Photoautotrophs?

Answer 1

Hint: Photoautotrophs are the organisms which can prepare their own food in the presence of sunlight. All plants bearing chloroplast/ photosynthetic pigment are photoautotrophs. The prokaryotes use the bacteriochlorophyll and chlorophyll to perform photosynthesis.

Complete answer:
The Protista is a unicellular, eukaryotic organism which cannot be classified as plants, animals or fungi. The mode of nutrition of protists depends upon their nature and habitat. The Protista which bears chlorophyll are photosynthetic typically determined in freshwater and oceans and they are known as phytoplankton like dinoflagellates, chrysophytes and euglena.The eukaryotic algae are autotrophic. Photosynthetic protists are autotrophic as they make their food like that of plants. It consists of quite a few divisions and it primarily includes algae which are a unicellular small structure to giant seaweed size. Algae in photosynthetic protists are polyphyletic or paraphyletic.

Some protists are saprophytic which dwells on useless and decaying organic matter like slime mold whereas some protists are parasitic and protozoans like sporozoans, sarcodines, flagellates and ciliates. Some protists are mixotrophic in nature, that is they do not have chloroplast and like as an endosymbiont with other organisms like bacteria and algae. Example Paramecium. Some of the protists engulf food by the process of phagocytosis.

Thus Protists are Photoautotrophs.

Note: Photosynthetic protists restore 80% of carbon dioxide as it consists of chloroplast which performs photosynthesis similar to that of plants. Oxygenic photosynthesis is performed via plants, algae and cyanobacteria, where photosynthesis gets performed via Calvin cycle for fixation of carbon and carbon dioxide step which produces ATP and NADPH.