AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -Carbon is an essential element for all life forms on Earth. Whether these life forms take in carbon to help manufacture food or release carbon as part of respiration, the intake and output of carbon is a component of all plant and animal life.

Detailed explanation-2: -Carbon is found in all living things. Carbon atoms move constantly through living organisms, the oceans, the atmosphere, and the Earth’s crust in what is known as the carbon cycle.

Detailed explanation-3: -All life on Earth is carbon based, meaning the living things are composed of complex molecules that contain the element carbon. Carbon is an excellent starting material to make many different complex molecules because it can form four different bonds.

Detailed explanation-4: -Animals get carbon by eating plants or by eating other animals. Different products produce differing amounts of greenhouse gases. Common greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and methane.

Detailed explanation-5: -Life on earth would not be possible without carbon. This is in part due to carbon’s ability to readily form bonds with other atoms, giving flexibility to the form and function that biomolecules can take, such as DNA and RNA, which are essential for the defining characteristics of life: growth and replication.