5: The Carbon Cycle of Terrestrial Ecosystems
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- 5.3: Respiration
- In respiration, high energy (highly reducing) electrons travel down an electron transport chain and are finally delivered to an externally derived oxidizing agent. In eukaryotes and many prokaryotes the electron donor is NADH, and the terminal electron acceptor in O2. Some of the -∆G of this series of redox reactions is stored as a proton gradient, formed by some of the electron carriers, which are also proton pumps. The energy stored in this gradient can be employed to power many +∆G processe