Biochemistry Commons^™

Diverse Far-Red Light Utilization Strategies In Cyanobacteria And Algae, Benjamin Martin Wolf

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In their natural environments, photosynthetic organisms are often exposed to widely varied light environments. Species adapted to shade light, often found growing in lower layers of photosynthetic biofilms, must survive on filtered light alone. Filtered light is highly enriched in far-red wavelengths, which are normally unavailable for photosynthetic energy production in most oxygenic phototrophs. To overcome light limitations in filtered light environments, some species of algae and cyanobacteria utilize specialized photosynthetic pigments and antenna systems to harvest these far-red wavelengths. By sampling the natural environment and using custom-built far-red light growth chambers, I have isolated several species of oxygenic phototrophs …