Relating to organisms or processes that create energy from chemical reactions rather than sunlight, like bacteria living near deep-sea vents.
From 'chemo-' (chemical) and 'synthetic' (building up). This term was coined as biologists discovered in the 1960s-70s that some organisms could thrive in sunless environments using chemical energy.
Deep-sea creatures live in a completely alien economy where sunlight is worthless—chemosynthetic bacteria instead 'eat' hydrogen sulfide from volcanic vents, creating a food web that exists entirely independent of the sun's energy.
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