Illustrate the fundamental tradeoff between water retention and carbon gain faced by all terrestrial plants. Describe in a general way the inputs and outputs of the partial reactions of photosynthesis. Utilize an equation for describing the flux of water vapor and carbon dioxide into and out of leaves. Illustrate the fundamental tradeoff between water retention and carbon gain faced by all terrestrial plants. Assigned reading Purves et al., pp.
Light energy is converted to chemical energy and stored in energy rich molecules.
Some of the energy released creates an electrochemical gradient. The energy captured is then transferred to a reaction center protein. Protons produce an electric field across the photosynthetic membrane. This process is called the photosynthetic carbon reduction cycle. The evaporative loss of water from a plant is called transpiration.