How do non-green colored leaves in a plant photosynthesize?

We also have to be careful when studying green plants because in the light the green parts of these plants carry out photosynthesis as well as respiration.

Light from the sun is actually energy, and is advantageous to the Earth in several ways. One of the most important ways is through photosynthesis. Plants absorb the red and blue wavelengths of light energy, and reflect the green wavelength. This is why plants appear to be green; that is the color not being absorbed by the plants.

How do non-green colored leaves in a plant photosynthesize

“Currently, photosynthesis by plants is probably optimal for a wild, natural situation, but may be optimised for a crop cultivation setting,” says , personal professor at the Laboratory of Genetics of Wageningen University & Research. “It is a delicate and yet rather aggressive process, involving potentially dangerous energy fluxes, which includes many protective mechanisms to keep this process under control. This is probably best for natural conditions in the field. Crops however are often grown under more controlled conditions, whether in the field or in greenhouses. This means that they might be able to do without some of the protective mechanisms, especially if they pose a limit to production," says Aarts.

Plants use sunlight to produce their own nutrients and energy: photosynthesis. If we want to keep the planet and its growing population running in a sustainable way, we will need plants to produce far more food, energy and applicable biomass than they do now. Photosynthesis, the green engine of life on Earth, needs tuning.

Green Plant Photosynthesis - Biology 150

Photosynthesis in green plants harnesses the energy of sunlight toconvert carbon dioxide, water, and minerals into organic compoundsand gaseous oxygen.In addition to the green plants, photosynthetic organisms includecertain protists (such as euglenoids and diatoms), cyanophytes(blue-green algae), and various bacteria.

Different photosynthetic organisms use differentcombinations of pigments, which have differentcolors because they absorb and reflect differentfrequencies of light.

Plants and greenalgae (plants are really advanced green algae)contain chlorophyll a (which is teal-green),chlorophyll b (which is yellow-green), andbeta-carotene (which is yellow), thus giving thema green color. Brown algae and their unicellularrelatives (e.g. diatoms) have chlorophylla,chlorophyll c, and lipid pigments calledfucoxanthins,which together give them agolden-brown color. Red algae possess chlorophylla and lipid-based pigments called phycobilins,which give them the brilliant red(or deep blue)color. These different combinations of pigmentsare more or less efficient at collecting light atcertain frequencies and at certain levels of lightintensity (too much will damage the pigment).Thus, they parcel out the Sun's energy to make themost use of it and to not compete with otherphotosynthetic organisms.

Photosynthesis - definition of photosynthesis by The …

The purpose of photosynthesis is to convert theenergy in photons (the infinitesimally smallpackets of energy that make up light) into thechemical bonds of sugar molecules.

Plants(and animals that eat plants) can then store theenergy and get it back out when they need it bybreaking those chemical bonds. The tricky part ofphotosynthesis is that it takes a very preciseamount of energy to form a particular chemicalbond. Furthermore, the photons from differentcolors of light contain different amounts ofenergy.

You probably know the colors ofthe spectrum (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue,Indigo, Violet); well, those colors are inascending order of energy -- a photon of bluelight has more energy than a photon of red light(this is true because of Planck's Law, which aphysicist could explain better than I).

Aparticular pigment molecule (like chlorophyll) isspecialized for absorbing a particular color oflight and converting the light energy into theappropriate amount of chemical energy for making achemical bond (actually there are many othermolecules that help the pigment perform thisenergy conversion, but only the pigment itself canabsorb the light). Chlorophyll just absorbs blueand red light; it hardly absorbs any green lightat all, so the green gets reflected back to oureyes, which is why leaves appear green. Otherpigments that plants have in their leaves absorblight of different colors, so they reflect red,orange, yellow, or blue light and appear to bethose colors to our eyes. Because the white lightcoming from the sun is actually made up of photonsof all the different colors, it is veryadvantageous to the plant to have many pigmentsthat can absorb such a wide range of the availablecolors of light.

sunlight is absorbed by chlorophyll in a leaf B

Photosynthesis does the opposite of respiration. Carbon dioxide is absorbed and oxygen is produced. In order to study respiration in green plants we must block out the light, because although green plants respire all the time they only photosynthesize in the light.

carbon dioxide is taken in from the air C

Chlorophylla-a is the primary for in plants. Its structure is shown at left. It has the composition C₅₅H₇₂O₅N₄Mg. It exhibits a grass-green visual color and absorption peaks at 430nm and 662nm. It occurs in all photosynthetic organisms except photosynthetic bacteria.