AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -Why is carbon so basic to life? The reason is carbon’s ability to form stable bonds with many elements, including itself. This property allows carbon to form a huge variety of very large and complex molecules.

Detailed explanation-2: -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.

Detailed explanation-3: -The bonding properties of carbon Perhaps more important, however, is carbon’s capacity for covalent bonding. Because a C atom can form covalent bonds to as many as four other atoms, it’s well suited to form the basic skeleton, or “backbone, ” of a macromolecule.

Detailed explanation-4: -Carbon has a few unique bonding properties-the most important of which is its ability to form long chains of carbon. No other elements can do this.

Detailed explanation-5: -Living things are carbon-based because carbon plays such a prominent role in the chemistry of living things. This means that carbon atoms, bonded to other carbon atoms or other elements, form the fundamental components of many, if not most, of the molecules found uniquely in living things.