any organism capable of self-nourishment by using inorganic materials as a source of nutrients and using photosynthesis or chemosynthesis as a source of energy, as most plants and certain bacteria and protists.
a taxonomic kingdom of prokaryotic organisms that typically reproduce by asexual budding or fission and have a nutritional mode of absorption, photosynthesis, or chemosynthesis, comprising the bacteria, blue-green algae, and various primitive pathogens.
