Why photosynthetic organisms evolved to have dimeric reaction centres
By 
Alistair Shearer2019-09-10T14:29:00
Excitation energy transfer enhancements thought to compensate for decrease in charge transfer efficiency of going from monomers to dimers
Ancient photosynthetic reaction centres for converting light energy into chemical energy were monomeric. Modern photosynthetic reaction centres, however, are all dimeric. Now, scientists in Australia have outlined six possible explanations for this evolutionary switch and have concluded that the most plausible reason is that dimeric structures improved the reaction centre’s exciton- and charge-transfer capabilities.