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. For one kilogram of dry plant material, about 225 kg of water passes through the plant in the growing season. Technically the stoma is only the opening or pore in the plant's surface. Water diffuses 1.56 times faster than CO 2 .