Licht und Entwicklung — das Phytochromsystem der Pflanzen

In photosynthetic green plants light is the decisive environmental factor. The terrestrial green plant is organized almost ideally in a way so as to absorb and process light quanta. The genetic adaptation to the factor, light, has taken place in the course of the genetic evolution (phylogeny) of terrestrial plants. However, light also affects the individual development (ontogeny) profoundly insofar as the genes which control normal development of a higher plant can only express themselves fully in the presence of light. Thus, the development of a higher plant (“photomorphogenesis”) is characterized by the obligatory interaction between genes and environment (light). The mechanisms of “transduction of light signals”, i.e. the biophysical and molecular events during photomorphogenesis, are described in the present article.