Question

Phycobiliproteins are complex proteins in cyanobacteria that absorb light energy. There are three kinds of phycobiliprotein molecules used to pass light to chlorophyll: phycoerythrin—responsible for capturing green light, phycocyanin—responsible for capturing orange-red light, and allophycocyanin—responsible for capturing red light.

Since light can only penetrate to certain depths in oceans (figure 1), phycobiliproteins capture the light available and pass it through various pathways of phycobiliproteins until the emitted light is red, which is absorbed by chlorophyll.



Explain the relationship between chlorophyll absorption and wavelength.
In addition to the pigments commonly associated with photosynthesis, a certain photosynthetic species contains two additional pigment types. Justify the claim that this species is better adapted to environmental changes than the cyanobacteria described above. Provide reasoning that explains this claim.

Answer 1

since chlorophyll are only able to absorb the red, then the relationship is that the shorter the wavelength the better the chlorophyll will absorb the light for the bacteria. the second species will therefore be able to absorb more different wavelengths of light to turn it into the red light that can then be absorbed, in case the wavelengths of light that reach the bacteria in the ocean changed for some reason