What does pH have to do with the rate of photosynthesis?

Do pH levels have any important to the rate of photosynthesis in plants - 10 POINTS?

• Do low or high pH levels affect the rate of photosynthesis at all? Please explain.

• Answer:

  PH is the measure of the acidity of a solution, and it does affect the rate of photostnthesis. The pH scale ranges from 0 to 14, with 7 being neutral. Measurements below 7 indicate acidity, and measurements above 7 indicate that a solution is alkaline, or basic. Changes in pH affect all biological processes, primarily through its influence on enzymes. Enzymes are important "workers" inside cells that are disabled by extremes in pH. RuBisCO(Ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase oxygenase) is the key carbon-fixing enzyme in the process of photosynthesis, and it functions optimally at a pH of 8. Raising or lowering the pH from 8 will negatively influence the rate of photosynthesis because RuBisCO will begin to work more slowly. When the pH reaches 6 on the low side and 10 on the high side, RuBisCO will cease working altogether. Besides RuBisCO, there are many enzymes and proteins involved in the photosynthetic process; all of them are negatively affected by the raising or lowering of pH from the optimal level. Now what it states is that that lowering the pH or by having more acid in the water effects chlorophyll molecules, which are very important to photosynthesis, by altering them so they can no longer participate in the correct reactions they need to perform. Also that high acid concentration affects other enzymes which lead to overall reduction in photosynthesis.