Optimizing photosynthetic light-harvesting under stars: simple and general antenna models.

ABSTRACT: In the next 10-20 years, several observatories will aim to detect the signatures of oxygenic photosynthesis on exoplanets, though targets must be carefully selected. Most known potentially habitable exo-planets orbit cool M-dwarf stars, which have limited emission in the photosynthetically active region of the spectrum (PAR, 400 < λ < 700 nm) used by Earth's oxygenic photoautotrophs. Still, recent experiments have shown that model cyanobacteria, algae, and non-vascular plants grow comfortably under simulated M-dwarf light, though vascular plants struggle. Here, we hypothesize that this is partly due to the different ways they harvest light, reflecting some general rule that determines how photosynthetic antenna structures may evolve under different stars. We construct a simple thermodynam

SUBMITTER: Chitnavis S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11413096 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature