FS561 – Physiology of Woody Plants
Fall 2009
OBJECTIVES AND REFERENCES FOR October 27:
Photosynthesis and light response
Reading: Chapter 5 of Pallardy's book - especially
pp. 107-119;
Useful additional information:
Taiz and Zeiger chapter 8
Lambers, Chapin and Pons pp. 12-14
Discussion
of A/Ci curves from Lambers, Chapin and Pons (pp. 18-20)
Lambers,
Chapin and Pons pp. 96-134
On the web:
On-line
animation of carboxylation
The Dark
Reactions of Photosynthesis, Assimilation of Carbon Dioxide And The
CALVIN Cycle.
The Carbon
fixation cycle
How the carbon cycle
was elucidated
Rubisco: a model
enzyme for studying structure and function
Carbon dioxide: some
important physicochemical properties
Rubisco activase
photorespiration
Photorespiration
The Calvin
Cycle
Field photosynthesis measurement systems
Role of respiration
in desiccation tolerance
The distribution of
chlorophylls and other photosynthetic pigments
Chlorophyll
biosynthesis
Chloroplasts
Chlorophylls and Carotenoids
The science of color in autumn leaves
Powerpoint presentation on canopy reflectance, LAI and remote sensing
Other interesting
links that are more tangentially related to this lecture:
list of publications dealing with leaf display and orientation
Feild et al. 2001. Why leaved turn red in Autumn. The role of anthocyanins in
senescing leaves of red-osier dogwood. Plant Physiology 127:566-574
Galvez and Pearcy. 2003. Petiole twisting in the crowns of Psychotria
limonensis: implications for light interception and daily carbon gain.
Oecologia 135:22-29.
Learning Objectives:
After this lecture and any supplementary
reading you find useful, you should be able to:
- Define and
appropriately use these terms (at least to the level of detail that
these terms were presented in lecture): electron transport;
photophosphorylation, thylakoid membranes, lumen, stroma, chloroplast,
grana, lipid bi-layer; photoinhibition; ATP; NADPH; ATP synthase;
RUBISCO;
Calvin-Benson cycle (aka, "Calvin" cycle" and PCR), RUBP, 3 PGA
(aka "3 phosphoglycerate"), triose phosphate
- Explain how the
intercellular air spaces in plant leaves in combination with plant
pigments make the spectral properties of plants unique, and how this is
useful in remote sensing and “false color” photography.
- Describe some of
the most important controls over light absorption by plants on the
canopy scale, the leaf scale, the cellular scale and the biochemical
scale.
- Describe where,
within a chloroplast, photosynthetic electron transport and the PCR
cycle (AKA the “photosynthetic carbon reduction cycle, or “Calvin
Cycle”) take place.
- Describe general
characteristics of chlorophyll and caratenoid molecules that help them
function as pigments (you do NOT need to memorize the structures!);
explain why chlorophyll absorption in leaves covers a much broader
spectrum than absorption of extracted chlorophyll
in a test tube.
- Explain why the
entire electron transport change (both photosystems I and II) can
operate in only red light, but only photosystem I can operate in only
far-red light
- Explain what
causes the lumen of the grana to have a lower pH compared with the
stroma, and why this is important in photophosphorylation
- Describe how
photochemistry causes a flow of photons to be transformed into a flow of
electrons. Where do the electrons in the electron transport chain come
from? Where do they go?
- Name the two
primary products of photochemistry that are required in carbon fixation
and describe in very general terms how they are produced through
photochemistr
10. Describe in
general terms the major steps of the Calvin cycle and how it connects
with the light harvesting process (i.e., where ATP and NADPH from light
harvesting is used in the Calvin cycle
11. Discuss
unusual and important characteristics of the Rubisco enzyme, including
its capacity for both oxygenase and carboxylase activity, the
relationship between the oxygenase activity of Rubisco and
photorespiration