Cyanothece the process of fixing nitrogen became unfavorable, and natural selection eliminated some of the necessary genes for the nitrogenase protein complex to increase evolutionary fitness. Cyanobacteria turn energy from the sun into chemical energy through oxygenic photosynthesis. Their light-harvesting complex that captures the photons usually includes the pigments chlorophyll a and phycocyanin. A cyanobacterium’s typical blue-green color is a result of the combination of these two pigments. Three "Cyanothece" strains, sp. PCC 7424, 7822 and 8801, have the additional pigment phycoerythrin, which expands the wavelengths of light these species use for energy. Phycoerythrin also gives these three species a brownish-green
Light-dependent reactions the production of NADPH. Cyclic phosphorylation is important to create ATP and maintain NADPH in the right proportion for the light-independent reactions. The net-reaction of all light-dependent reactions in oxygenic photosynthesis is: The two photosystems are protein complexes that absorb photons and are able to use this energy to create an electron transport chain. Photosystem I and II are very similar in structure and function. They use special proteins, called light-harvesting complexes, to absorb the photons with very high effectiveness. If a special pigment molecule in a photosynthetic reaction center absorbs a photon, an electron in this pigment attains the