An ecosystem based on anoxygenic photosynthesis?

The organisms in the oxygen based ecosystem we have today is perfectly adapted to each other. The ocean is filled with water, and on land it falls from the sky. Plants, algae and cyanobacteria split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Carbon dioxide is absorbed to produce sugars. Animals, fungus and the other non-photosynthetic organisms, as well as plants at night, use oxygen and release carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere.

This cycle is based on water as both an electron donor and a substance all living things needs to survive. And it is based on carbon and oxygen, where the consumers release carbon into the atmosphere, making it available for the primary producers, and the release of the waste product oxygen into the atmosphere, a molecule all complex forms of life depends on.

But there are other photosynthetic forms of life, bacteria that use a different electron donor than water. Are there any of these, if given the chance, that could have the potential to form a complex ecosystem regarding available electron donors, with consumers that produce an atmospheric waste product the producers requires to live, which in turn produce their own waste product the consumers depends on? Of course, the producers would also form the foundation of the food web, but that goes without saying.

posted about 5 years ago

Trond Jansen‭

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