Plant kingdom is dominated by green color, no matter where you find yourself observing plants, from Amazon to oceans, highlands and houseplants. Plants reflect some light, and it happens that the light that they reflect is made up of green photons. This has puzzled biologists, because it is the green part of the sunlight spectrum that contains the biggest amount of energy, so this effect seemed wasteful. Newest research shows that this is happening because it provides a less volatile energy flow. Nature has sacrificed efficiency of the process for its stability.
Key Takeaways:
- Although plants absorb almost all the photons in the red and blue regions of the light spectrum, they absorb only about 90% of the green photons.
- For a safe, steady energy output, the pigments of the photosystem had to be very finely tuned in a certain way. The pigments needed to absorb light at similar wavelengths to reduce the internal noise.
- It appears that the photosynthesis machinery evolved not for maximum efficiency but rather for an optimally smooth and reliable output.
“Even after decades of molecular research on the light-harvesting machinery in plants, scientists could not establish a detailed rationale for plants’ color.”
Read more: https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-are-plants-green-to-reduce-the-noise-in-photosynthesis-20200730/
