dttom Posted January 10, 2006 Posted January 10, 2006 The curve in the graph of the relationship between light intensity and photosynthetic rate firstly is quite steep and become gentler and gentler gradully, finally becomes horizontal as limited by other factors. At first the slope is steep as the input of light energy increases, and finally it becomes horizontal as limited by other factors such as carbon dioxide concentration, but why would it first get gentler?
ecoli Posted January 10, 2006 Posted January 10, 2006 No matter how much light you have, a plant doesn't have unlimited chloroplasts to absorb and make use of it all.
swansont Posted January 10, 2006 Posted January 10, 2006 No matter how much light you have, a plant doesn't have unlimited chloroplasts to absorb and make use of it all. And related to this, I'm speculating that it probably takes a certain amount of time to complete the reaction, so there would be a "dead time" during which photons would not trigger a reaction. Without seeing the graph I wouldn't be surprised if was an exponential buildup shape at that point, asymptotic to the level where all of the chloroplasts are undergoing a reaction.
dttom Posted January 11, 2006 Author Posted January 11, 2006 No matter how much light you have, a plant doesn't have unlimited chloroplasts to absorb and make use of it all. I know, so it'll have an end point but why the curve get gentle first?0
insane_alien Posted January 12, 2006 Posted January 12, 2006 swansont just explained it. its chemically sound. as a side note: If you take it to extremes it will eventual drop to 0 as the intensity becomes enough to ignite the plant.
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