Plants make their own food using photosynthesis. The food that plants produce is important, not only for the plants themselves, but for the other organisms that feed on the plants.
There are several ways of measuring the rate of photosynthesis in the lab. These include:
These are not perfect methods as the plant will also be respiring, which will use up some oxygen and carbohydrate and increase carbon dioxide output.
Several factors can affect the rate of photosynthesis:
The amount of chlorophyll also affects the rate of photosynthesis:
Without enough light, a plant cannot photosynthesise very quickly - even if there is plenty of water and carbon dioxide and a suitable temperature.
Increasing the light intensity increases the rate of photosynthesis, until some other factor – a limiting factor – becomes in short supply.
At very high light intensities, photosynthesis is slowed and then inhibited, but these light intensities do not occur in nature.
Carbon dioxide – with water – is one of the reactants in photosynthesis.
If the concentration of carbon dioxide is increased, the rate of photosynthesis will therefore increase.
Again, at some point, a factor may become limiting.
The chemical reactions that combine carbon dioxide and water to produce glucose are controlled by enzymes. As with any other enzyme-controlled reaction, the rate of photosynthesis is affected by temperature.
At low temperatures, the rate of photosynthesis is limited by the number of molecular collisions between enzymes and substrates. At high temperatures, enzymes are denatured.
Chlorophyll absorbs the light energy required to convert carbon dioxide and water into glucose.
Chlorophyll is green - so absorbs the red and blue parts of the electromagnetic spectrum and reflects the green part of the spectrum.
Leaves with more chlorophyll are better able to absorb the light required for photosynthesis.
These graphs have been plotted with rate of photosynthesis against the factor under investigation.
If oxygen production or carbon dioxide uptake is used as a measure of photosynthetic rate, the graphs are slightly different. The line does not go through the origin. This is because oxygen production and carbon dioxide uptake are affected by respiration as well as photosynthesis. For instance, if a graph is plotted of carbon dioxide against light intensity:
The compensation point is the light intensity at which the rate of photosynthesis is equal to the rate of respiration.
A similar graph will be obtained if oxygen production is plotted against light intensity.