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Light Acquisition

Light Acquisition

In order to produce glucose, plants need to capture sufficient light energy. Many modern plants have evolved leaves specialized for light acquisition. Leaves can be only millimeters in width or tens of meters wide, depending on the environment. Due to competition for sunlight, evolution has driven the evolution of increasingly larger leaves and taller plants, to avoid shading by their neighbors with contaminant elaboration of root architecture and mechanisms to transport water and nutrients.

What is Photosynthesis?

What is Photosynthesis?

Photosynthesis is a multipart, biochemical process that occurs in plants as well as in some bacteria. It captures carbon dioxide and solar energy to produce glucose. Glucose stores chemical energy in the form of carbohydrates. The overall biochemical formula of photosynthesis is 6 CO2 + 6 H2O + Light energy → C6H12O6 + 6 O2. Photosynthesis releases oxygen into the atmosphere and is largely responsible for maintaining the Earth’s atmospheric oxygen content.

What is Photosynthesis?

What is Photosynthesis?

All living organisms on Earth are directly or indirectly dependent on photosynthesis. It is the only biological process that can capture energy from sunlight and convert it into chemical energy that every organism can use to power its metabolism. Photosynthesis is also the source of oxygen required by many living organisms.
Types of Organisms Based on their Modes of Nutrition
Broadly, there are two main categories of organisms based on their modes of nutrition — autotrophs and...

The Calvin Benson Cycle

The Calvin Benson Cycle

Ribulose 1,5- bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (RuBisCo) is a critical enzyme that catalyzes carbon dioxide assimilation during photosynthesis. However, it is an inefficient enzyme, having an extremely slow catalytic rate. A typical enzyme can process about a thousand molecules per second; however, RuBisCo fixes only around three-carbon dioxides per second. Photosynthetic cells compensate for this slow rate by synthesizing very high amounts of RuBisCo, making it the most abundant single...

Photoreceptors and Plant Responses to Light

Photoreceptors and Plant Responses to Light

Light plays a significant role in regulating the growth and development of plants. In addition to providing energy for photosynthesis, light provides other important cues to regulate a range of developmental and physiological responses in plants.

Photosystem II

Photosystem II

The multi-protein complex photosystem II (PS II) harvests photons and transfers their energy through its bound pigments to its reaction center, and ultimately to photosystem I (PSI) through the electron transport chain. The pigments responsible for caputirng the light energy in photosystems include chlorophyll a, chlorophyll b, and carotenoids.
The pigment molecules are arranged across two photosystem domains — the antenna complex and the reaction center. The main aim of the pigment...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Dec 24, 2025

PARbars: Cheap, Easy to Build Ceptometers for Continuous Measurement of Light Interception in Plant Canopies

PARbars: Cheap, Easy to Build Ceptometers for Continuous Measurement of Light Interception in Plant Canopies

Published on: May 9, 2019

Simulating daily field crop canopy photosynthesis: an integrated software package.

Alex Wu¹, Al Doherty¹, Graham D Farquhar²

¹Centre for Plant Science, Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Qld 4072, Australia.

Functional Plant Biology : FPB

|April 16, 2020

Summary

Researchers developed a Diurnal Canopy Photosynthesis Simulator (DCaPS) to link leaf photosynthesis to crop performance. This model aids in understanding how photosynthetic changes impact crop productivity under optimal conditions.

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Evaluation of Photosynthetic Behaviors by Simultaneous Measurements of Leaf Reflectance and Chlorophyll Fluorescence Analyses

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Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Dec 24, 2025

PARbars: Cheap, Easy to Build Ceptometers for Continuous Measurement of Light Interception in Plant Canopies

PARbars: Cheap, Easy to Build Ceptometers for Continuous Measurement of Light Interception in Plant Canopies

Published on: May 9, 2019

Field Measurement of Effective Leaf Area Index using Optical Device in Vegetation Canopy

Field Measurement of Effective Leaf Area Index using Optical Device in Vegetation Canopy

Published on: July 29, 2021

Evaluation of Photosynthetic Behaviors by Simultaneous Measurements of Leaf Reflectance and Chlorophyll Fluorescence Analyses

Evaluation of Photosynthetic Behaviors by Simultaneous Measurements of Leaf Reflectance and Chlorophyll Fluorescence Analyses

Published on: August 9, 2019

Area of Science:

Agricultural Science
Plant Physiology
Computational Biology

Background:

Advancing crop productivity relies on photosynthetic manipulation.
A gap exists in connecting leaf-level photosynthesis to crop performance.

Purpose of the Study:

To develop a model of diurnal canopy photosynthesis.
To bridge the gap between leaf-level photosynthetic manipulation and crop performance.

Main Methods:

Upscaled biochemical models of C3 and C4 photosynthesis to canopy level using sun-shade leaf representation.
Integrated canopy model over a day for diurnal simulation.
Developed a web-based application for the Diurnal Canopy Photosynthesis Simulator (DCaPS).

Main Results:

The model accurately simulated diurnal canopy photosynthesis and daily biomass accumulation.
Model responses aligned with key environmental factors (radiation, temperature, CO2).
Model showed expected responses to canopy attributes (leaf area index, leaf angle) and nitrogen status.

Conclusions:

The Diurnal Canopy Photosynthesis Simulator (DCaPS) effectively models canopy photosynthesis.
DCaPS can assess the impact of altered photosynthetic properties on crop performance.
This tool facilitates connecting photosynthesis research with crop growth and development modeling.