Plants can grow with much less light than previously thought, according to a new study on tiny water-based organisms called microalgae that has been published in Nature Communications. The German-led team of researchers lowered light sensors into Arctic water to a depth of 50 metres to test how low light levels must become before plant life ceases to exist, with incredible results.
They found that plants were able to perform photosynthesis – the process in which their leaves convert sunlight into energy – with very little light indeed. Not only did the microalgae carry out this process at the lowest light levels ever recorded (just 0.04 micromoles of photons m⁻²/s⁻¹), this wasn’t very far from what computer simulations predict to be the lowest light possible in any circumstances (0.01 micromoles of photons m⁻²/s⁻¹).
