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by uj8efdkjfdshf 2145 days ago
I think the point is that since the power available at these wavelengths vary sharply with frequency in these regions of the solar spectrum, the plant can easily compensate for brightness fluctuations in these portions of the spectrum with minor tweaks to the target wavelength of the relevant photosystems
2 comments

I'd this is the case, it's a shame the article didn't mention it.

It makes sense the changing environmental conditions for a molecule could affect the wavelengths of light it absorbs (for example, pH, temperature, etc), but I'm not sure this has been demonstrated for plant pigments?

I'm confused though -- how can the plant possibly vary this?
In principle plants have several different variants of the light absorbing molecules with different absorption spectra but I don't know how this would actually be regulated. But it is certainly imaginable that plants vary the relative abundance of the different light absorbing molecules or their efficiencies and this could be more or less automatic because of varying conditions like pH or whatnot that affects efficiency or lifetime of the molecules with a simple feedback mechanism or it could be actively regulated by a more complex feedback loop.