Title: The relationship between light intensity and the rate of photosynthesis in spinach leaves | StudyHippo.com
Headings: The relationship between light intensity and the rate of photosynthesis in spinach leaves
The relationship between light intensity and the rate of photosynthesis in spinach leaves
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Content: Oxygen is a product of the light dependent reactions. In contrast, the light-independent reactions result in the production of sugar from carbon dioxide. It is useful to study factors that affect rate of photosynthesis in order to determine the conditions of optimal photosynthetic activity and explain various characteristics of plants. For example, understanding the affect of light intensity on rate of photosynthesis may reveal why shrubs in the shade do not grow as tall as trees with greater exposure to sunlight. In this experiment, spinach leaves were subjected to varying light intensities to determine the effect of light intensity on rate of photosynthesis as measured by production of oxygen. We expected rate of photosynthesis to increase with increasing light intensity. This was because increasing light intensity would increase the amount of energy available for the light dependent photosynthetic reactions. However, the increasing rate of photosynthesis was predicted to eventually level off with increasing light intensity because when light intensity was no longer a limiting factor of photosynthetic rate, other factors such as amount of water and CO2 became limiting. Therefore, a maximum rate of photosynthesis was reached at a level of “light intensity saturation.” ( textbook)Materials and Methods: