Anaerobic Respiration in Plants


 
 
Concept Explanation
 

Anaerobic Respiration in Plants

This is the type of respiration in which organic food is oxidised incompletely. It occurs in cytoplasm and releases small amount of energy. It is believed that the first cells on this planet lived in an reducing environment when O_2 was not present in the atmosphere, i.e., they were anaerobes. Even among present day living organisms, several are adapted to anaerobic conditions.

Some of them are facultative anaerobes (organisms that have capability of switching from aerobic to anaerobic conditions according to the availability of oxygen) while others are obligate anaerobes (organisms that are killed by normal atmospheric concentration of oxygen of 21%).

Thus, in any case, all living organisms retain the enzymatic machinery for partial oxidation of glucose in the absence of oxygen. And this breakdown of glucose to pyruvic acid is called glycolysis. It occurs in cytoplasm of the living cell.

Anaerobic Respiration in Plants :

Sometimes certain parts of the plants may temporarily respire even in the absence of oxygen. In this type of respiration, the  glucose molecule is incompletely broken down in to ethanol(ethyl alcohol) and carbon dioxide with the release of small quantity of energy. This chemical reaction  can be represented in the folllowing manner :-

            C_6H_1_2O_6 rightarrow 2C_2H_5 OH + 2CO_2 + 2 ATP

Anaerobic respiration in any part cannot continue in a plant for more than a few days and the part ultimately dies. But  there are certain microscopic organisms such as certain bacteria and fungi which normally respire only anaerobically.

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