Question

The chloroplasts of flowering land plants typically contain at least two photosynthetic pigments, chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b, that differ in the wavelengths of light they absorb. The synthesis of chlorophyll pigments from precursor molecules is a process that involves many sequential enzyme-catalyzed steps. Researchers studied the growth and photosynthetic ability of a plant that contained a mutant form of one of the enzymes required for chlorophyll biosynthesis.

(a) Describe the effect on chlorophyll-containing photosystems when the chlorophyll molecules absorb photons of light.
(b) Identify an appropriate control that the researchers should use when they study the growth and photosynthetic ability of the plant with the mutant enzyme.
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(c) Scientists claim that a plant that has more than one type of photosynthetic pigment has greater fitness than a plant that has only one type of photosynthetic pigment. Provide reasoning to justify this claim.
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Answer 1

a) Photosystem I requires the use of light converting an excited NADP + electron, reducing it to NADPH. In photosystems I and II, the passage of electrons to a series of redox reactions will be shown due to the absorption of light energy by the chlorophyll molecules.

(b) The control must be RuBisco, because for most photosynthesis responses to light, temperature and carbon dioxide, it produces oxygenation and carboxylation reactions, thus reflecting kinetic properties.

(c) plants can increase the ability in a variable ecosystem thanks to the flexibility of photosynthetic pigments, through these the necessary solar energy for photosynthesis is captured, according to each light spectrum there will be a specific pigment.