Smart Canopies? (IMAGE)
Caption
In an optimized canopy (right), leaves at the top, which receive too much light, might tilt vertically and have smaller and fewer light-gathering antennas (green cones) feeding many reaction centers. Those lower in the canopy would have larger antennas feeding fewer reaction centers. The leaves at the top would have a variant of RuBisCO, an important enzyme in photosynthesis, that had high catalytic activity but not be particularly good at distinguishing carbon from oxygen, whereas those at the bottom might have RuBisCO variants that were slower but less inclined to pick up oxygen instead of carbon.
Credit
Based on Zhu et al., <i>PNAS</i>
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