Talk:Autotroph

message: The flowchart implies that there are organisms that produce their own organic compounds, but not by using light and not by using inorganic chemical reactions, and are called autotrophs (the box at the bottom of the chart).  In other words, the flowchart suggests that there is a subtype of autotrophs, which is also called autotrophs, that are neither photoautotrophs nor chemoautotrophs.stupidness
If that is true, then it would be useful for the article to explain how these organisms produce organic compounds. If it is false, the flowchart should be fixed. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.202.8.114 (talk) 07:02, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Also, the word "elsewhere" has no referrent. What is the "where" from which "elsewhere" differs? Unfree (talk) 06:05, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Since elsewhere ist everything outside of the liveform it is really very confusing if not wrongly. I think the first question should be "optains carbon from other lifeforms?" --Pistnor (talk) 01:26, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Flowchart is confusing 

message: "This mechanism is called primary production in the sea." Does that mean that scuba divers talk differently when they return to the boat, or only when they get back to shore? Or are we talking about the language of mermaids? Unfree (talk) 06:35, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: In the sea?

message: The article "heterotroph" states (correctly) that all animals are heterotrophic, and the article Fungus states that some fungi may be considered as autotrophs. I reworded the relevant section accordingly. Kolorado (talk) 20:14, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: "Other organisms, called heterotrophs, take in autotrophs as food to carry out functions necessary for their life" Since many heterotrophs feed on heterotrophs or their remains the sentence is misleading. Only the first link in the food chain is heterotrophs taking in autotrophs --Pistnor (talk) 01:47, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Autotroph animals? 

message: The statement "An autotroph can produce its own energy through photosynthesis through the inputs of light, carbon dioxide and H2O."  is inaccurate, because autotrophs convert physical energy source into chemical form. Therefore the better statement can be: "An autotroph converts physical energy through photosynthesis using the inputs of light, carbon dioxide and H2O into chemical form". Nagarjunag (talk) 11:04, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Isn't this just splitting hairs? Chemical forms are a form of bound energy. The point is that autotrophs use inputs to produce a chemical form that can be utilised in turn as "food" to produce energy. Ultimately, it powers itself by the way it converts the energy implicit in its inputs. --Epipelagic (talk) 04:10, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  It is important that energy can only be converted and not produced, so external energy (light, e.g. radialtion, energy bound in chemicals, ...) is converted to living materia. --Pistnor (talk) 02:04, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  autotrophs do not produce their own energy 

message: "They are able to make their own food, ..."  is misleading.  Food for the plants consists in their nutrients, which are taken from their environment.  If they are capable of making then why take it from the environment? Therefore, This statement is not necessary.  The rest of the paragraph is OK.  I suggest the "They are able to make their own food, and do not need a living energy or carbon source." be removed. --Nagarjunag (talk) 11:46, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  produce their own food 

message: Despite the number of primary school textbooks this statement can be found in, it is really meaningless:
'They are able to make their own food' 92.14.112.239 (talk) 00:28, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: You need to explain what you are on about in more detail. Google books has over 800 books which use this "really meaningless" phrase, most of which are not primary school books. And then horreur, Google scholar has nearly another 200 professional publications which use the phrase. The phrase has considerable merit in that it can be understood by primary school students, yet it does not seem particularly inaccurate to me. Can you please educate me and clarify what you are really trying to say? --Epipelagic (talk) 03:37, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Imprecise statement 

message: Substituted at 08:41, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment

message: Are methanotrophs categorized as autotrophs or heterotrophs? 
Methanotrophs obtain carbon by taking in methane as a gas dissolved in their environment. Chemically, methane is "organic" (see organic compound) but the methane that methanotrophs eat typically is abiotic – ecologically "inorganic" (see organic matter) – produced by geologic processes – does not immediately derive from some organism. 
* Like propper autotrophs, methanotrophs are primary producers of organic molecules in their environments; they can be eaten by other organisms, but do not require either the body parts or waste products of other organisms for food.
* Like conventional heterotrophs, methanotrophs do not inspire CO, but rather take in carbon as a (chemically) organic molecule, which they use for both a source of carbon and as a source of energy.
Unlike conventional heterotrophs, methanotrophs can and do survive eating carbon (methane) that has never been a part of any organism. As a thought experiment, methanotrophs could presumably thrive in a suitably comfortable environment on a methane-rich but originally lifeless planet (think of somewhere warm, deep inside Titan, for example).
:Some geologic methane is geologically primordial, and some is from cooked sediments that are a slow-moving branch of the carbon cycle. I'd say that all geologic methane counts as abiotic, since even if it was once biotic, it's been recycled via an abiotic process. The primordial carbon still in the Earth never has been a part of any organism and it looks, smells, and tastes the same as methane from recycled carbon.
So has this already been worked out? Where do the methane-eaters fit in this classification system? And does the categorization discussed in the article need to be re-written so that autotrophs are allowed to eat methane?
Astro-Tom-ical (talk) 03:11, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  What about methanotrophs?  

message: Importance of autotrophs in food web 41.114.128.248 (talk) 17:47, 9 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Life Sciences