Plants need to perform cellular respiration to convert the glucose produced during photosynthesis into energy. This energy, in the form of ATP (adenosine triphosphate), is essential for various cellular processes such as growth, repair, and maintaining homeostasis.
While photosynthesis allows plants to store energy from sunlight in the form of sugars, cellular respiration is the process through which they utilize that stored energy. During cellular respiration, plants take in oxygen and break down glucose, releasing carbon dioxide and water as byproducts. This process is crucial for the survival of plants, especially at night when there is no sunlight to perform photosynthesis.