0 a living thing that can make its own food from simple chemical substances such as carbon dioxide --
Some endoliths have specialized in feeding on their autotroph relatives.
From this carbon-based hypothesis the scientific team assumed some form of staple photosynthesizing animal/plant combination would be the principal autotroph.
Unlike some of its relatives, this species is an autotroph.
Being an autotroph it receives energy from growing on sulfur or even a variety of organic compounds.
As an estimate of autotroph biomass, it is only a rough indicator of primary production potential, and not an actual estimate of it.
Each food chain starts with a primary producer or autotroph, an organism, such as a plant, which is able to manufacture its own food.
These reduced carbon compounds can be used as an energy source by the autotroph and provide the energy in food consumed by heterotrophs.
Trophic mutualism often occurs between an autotroph and a heterotroph.
