Controlling photosynthetic helps feeding people on a warming planet

Plants convert sunlight into usable energy through photosynthesis, but constantly adjust where and how they store the self-made energy based on light level, temperature, moisture and other factors.

Photosynthesis is very powerful. If it's not controlled, it can produce too much energy, which can kill a plant.

Figuring out how plants make these adjustments could improve our understanding of how they perform in the field and help develop new

plants that can withstand rising temperatures from climate change and feeding people around the world on a warming planet.

Engineering plants with better photosynthetic control would mean those plants could survive in sunnier, warmer conditions.

A research team has created a computer model to understand how plants store energy in the thylakoid membrane, a key structure to photosynthesis in plant leaves. The team confirmed the accuracy of the mathematical model with lab experiments.

They provided an important piece to the overall puzzle of plant metabolism. integrating the model into the bigger picture, it may provide a good path for how to improve plants for certain environments.

The scientists shined a variety of lights on leaves and measured the changes in absorption and fluorescence.

They illuminate leaves with different light intensities to create excited states in pigments. The leaf then changes its absorption and fluorescence properties that they measure, telling us what is going on in the leaf.