What is the role of photosynthetic pigments in plants?

Question

thank you very much for your help!

Answer 1

preparation of food material (ie. starch)

Answer 2

photosynthetic pigment or antenna pigment is a pigment that is present in chloroplasts or photosynthetic bacteria and captures the light energy necessary for photosynthesis.

Green plants have five closely-related photosynthetic pigments (in order of increasing polarity):

Carotene - an orange pigment

Xanthophyll - a yellow pigment

Chlorophyll a - a blue-green pigment

Chlorophyll b - a yellow-green pigment

Phaeophytin a[1] - a gray-brown pigment

Phaeophytin b[1] - a yellow-brown pigment

Chlorophyll a is the most common of the six, present in every plant that performs photosynthesis. The reason that there are so many pigments is that each absorbs light more efficiently in a different part of the spectrum. Chlorophyll a absorbs well at a wavelength of about 400-450 nm and at 650-700 nm; chlorophyll b at 450-500 nm and at 600-650 nm. Xanthophyll absorbs well at 400-530 nm. However, none of the pigments absorbs well in the green-yellow region, which is responsible for the abundant green we see in nature.

Answer 3

Well photosynthetic pigments has to do with the different component of light (i.e. the colors - ROYGBIV) and their specific wavelenght. Photosynthetic pigments based on their colors can capture the energy from that wavelenght. For example fucoxanthin can capture the brown color of the light just like phycocyanin can capture the blue color of the light.

These photosynthetic pigments are usually the accessory pigments of Chlorophyll A which is the main pigments of most of the photosynthetic organisms in the earth.