Plants, do they need oxygen?

[EPhantom]

So, I have a little experiment I want to work on, but I need to know one thing, do plants need oxygen in the environment to survive?

I asked one of the botany instructors on campus, one semester she said they need some, the next she said they need none... now I don't know >.<

So... do they need a little of oxygen or can I just take it all away from the air around them?

[Moontanman]

Higher plants are are aerobic organisms, some photosynthetic bacteria are not...

[NathanielZhu]

Yes they do. Oxygen is the final electron acceptor in atp synthesis which both animals and plants go through

[StringJunky]

Photosynthesis is the production of starches and sugars which uses carbon dioxide to make them but they still need oxygen to utilise the sugars to get their energy from by respiration. Photosynthesis makes the products that store the energy and respiration is the actual release of that stored energy.

 

Photosynthesis: carbon dioxide + water (+ light energy) → glucose + oxygen

 

Respiration: glucose + oxygen → carbon dioxide + water (+ energy)

 

 

Higher plants are aerobes and depend upon a supply of molecular oxygen from their environment to support respiration and various other life-sustaining oxidations and oxygenation reactions. Without free oxygen most actively growing plants are unable to survive as individuals for more than a few hours or days and cannot develop sufficiently to reproduce either sexually or asexually. Accordingly, plants are endowed with anatomical and morphological features, such as numerous stomata, large surface to volume ratios and interconnected intercellular spaces that facilitate the entry and distribution of atmospheric oxygen. A plant's own photosynthesis can also supply some of its oxygen requirements during daytime. Despite these features, access to oxygen is often inhibited by environmental circumstances that restrict aeration of part or all of the plant (Hook and Crawford, 1978; Jackson, Davies and Lambers, 1991). When this occurs, the resulting tissue hypoxia or anoxia inevitably suppresses oxygen-dependant pathways especially the energy-generating system, disturbs functional relation-ships between organs such as roots and shoots, and suppresses both carbon assimilation and photosynthate utilization. Plant Adaptations to Anaerobic Stress Annals of Botany 79 (Supplement A): 3-20, 1997

Edited January 11, 2013 by StringJunky

[EPhantom]

Darn... I was hoping that I could just saturate a plant in a near pure CO2 environment and not worry about any other gasses. All the more difficult for me.