chemosynthesis
Americannoun
noun
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The formation of organic compounds using the energy released from chemical reactions instead of the energy of sunlight. Bacteria living in aphotic areas of the ocean are able to survive by chemosynthesis. They use energy derived from the oxidation of inorganic chemicals, such as sulfur released from deep hydrothermal vents, to produce their food.
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Vocabulary lists containing chemosynthesis
Earth Science - High School
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Ecology - Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems - Middle School and High School
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Marine Biology - Middle School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Here, microbes play the role of primary producers through chemosynthesis -- similar to the role that plants play on land through photosynthesis.
From Science Daily • Nov. 29, 2023
But these bacteria devour sulfides to generate energy in a process known as chemosynthesis.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 23, 2022
Because prokaryotes inhabit many different environments, they have evolved multiple strategies for meeting their energy demands, including chemosynthesis, photosynthesis, anaerobic cellular respiration, and aerobic cellular respiration.
From Textbooks • Jun. 9, 2022
Unlike surface life, which requires the sun’s light to survive, these life forms lived off the chemical energy in these super-hot toxic plumes—a process called chemosynthesis.
From Scientific American • Feb. 12, 2018
Suffocating as she was in that rubble, she could have come alive in a diminished form like all other creatures of chemosynthesis.
From Tokyo to Tijuana: Gabriele Departing America by Sills, Steven (Steven David Justin)
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
