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Bacterial Carbon Source - Carbon source. A number of microbial species which utilize C1 compounds other than CO₂ are similar in some important aspects to autotrophs.

The idea that autotrophs use CO₂ as the major obli­gatory source of carbon was derived from Winogradsky's Anorgoxydanten, meaning organisms obtaining carbon from CO₂ and energy from inorganic compounds. In the wider definition proposed by Whit­tenbury and Kelly the term autotrophs includes all organisms which are able to assimilate C1 compounds as their sole source of carbon.