Photosynthesis Essay

Effect of carbon dioxide availability on photosynthetic rate of the leaves of Elodea Densa.

Rosanth Anparasan1, Muhammad Ali Qazi1, Kyle Patel1, Sheldon Lui1, Hossein Bhorbani 1

1Dept. of Biological Sciences, University of Toronto Scarborough, Toronto, Canada

UTSC BIOA01 Lab PRA20, BENCH5:

PRA20 TA: Ashley Bramwell

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Abstract: The process of photosynthesis is the most essential chemical processes that occurs on the planet. Most terrestrial organisms require oxygen to survive and much of the oxygen in the atmosphere is produced by photosynthesis. Plants are the organisms that carry out this chemical reaction and so it is crucial to understand what impacts this process in both terrestrial and aquatic environments. This experiment considers the photosynthesis of aquatic plants and how various concentrations of CO2 effect this process. This was done by measuring the oxygen produced by Elodea Densa submerged in various concentrations of

In any given chemical reaction, the limiting reagent is the reactant that controls the rate of reaction. In this experiment, it will be assumed that water is in a surplus as it is in the real world compared to CO2. As it can be seen here, assuming an abundance of water, CO2 would act as a limiting reagent in this reaction. With all of this in mind, it can by hypothesized that if the availability of CO2 in the water changes then there will be a correlated change in the rate of photosynthesis as measured by the production of O2. More specifically, if CO2 levels increase then there will be a proportional positive increase in the level of photosynthesis of the plant. This will be measured using an aquatic test tube environment where each plant is exposed to various levels of CO2 and the photosynthetic rate being measured by amount of O2