What happens in photosynthetic bacteria that lacks chloroplasts?
The two people above me are incorrect. Photosynthetic bacteria (such as Cyanobacteria) are photoautotrophs, which means they create their own food through light, and of course photosynthetic itself means “light synthesized”. They just do it in a more non-traditional way than plants. They convert light energy into chemical stored energy; just without chloroplasts, and instead, directly inside the cell, with thylakoid members very similar to those in chloroplasts. Cyanobacteria (Cyano meaning “blue/green”, so yes, they do have color) contain thylakoid membranes very similar to those in chloroplasts and are the only prokaryotes that perform oxygen-generating photosynthesis. The other photosynthetic bacteria have a variety of different pigments, called bacteriochlorophylls, and do not produce oxygen. Some bacteria, such as Chromatium, oxidize hydrogen sulfide instead of water for photosynthesis, producing sulfur as waste.
