Beyond Light‑Use Efficiency: A Survival‑Chain Model Linking Radiative Supply to Plant Biomass-Energy Survival as a Fundamental Constraint on Plant Biomass Formation

Beyond Light-Use Efficiency: A Survival-Chain Model Linking Radiative Supply to Plant Biomass-Energy Survival as a Fundamental Constraint on Plant Biomass Formation

This research manuscript introduces a survival-based framework for explaining plant biomass formation beyond conventional light-use efficiency models. Although plants receive a substantial supply of solar radiation, only approximately 1–3% of incident solar energy is ultimately retained as net biomass under field and ecosystem conditions.

The study proposes that plant productivity is not determined by photosynthetic efficiency alone. Instead, biomass formation depends on how much absorbed energy survives a sequence of unavoidable physical, physiological, biochemical and thermodynamic loss processes.

The proposed survival chain includes:

• Light capture and photosynthetically active radiation absorption
• Excitation-energy transfer through pigment–protein complexes
• Biochemical carbon fixation
• Respiration and maintenance requirements
• Transport-related energy dissipation
• Irreversible entropy production
• Conversion and retention of energy as biomass

At the centre of the framework is a bounded Energy Survival Factor, Ψ, which distinguishes the survival of absorbed energy from the plant’s internal biochemical conversion capacity. The framework suggests that absorbed energy contributes to biomass only when it survives transport losses, environmental stress, respiration and thermodynamic dissipation long enough to be converted, allocated and retained.

Using representative physiological ranges for canopy light absorption, excitation survival, biochemical fixation and respiratory survival, the framework reconstructs net biomass conversion values broadly consistent with the observed 1–3% solar-to-biomass conversion range.

The study offers a conceptual basis for understanding:

• Why increasing light does not always increase plant biomass
• Why crop productivity frequently reaches a plateau
• How environmental stress increases energy dissipation
• Why improved leaf-level photosynthesis may produce limited field-level yield gains
• Why respiration, transport stability and energy retention may become important targets for crop breeding and management

Potential applications include crop productivity modelling, ecosystem energy-balance analysis, climate-response forecasting, precision agriculture, plant physiology, comparative bioenergetics and simulation-based uncertainty analysis.

This manuscript is shared to encourage academic discussion, critical evaluation, experimental testing and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Plant biomass; light-use efficiency; energy survival; photosynthesis; plant productivity; crop modelling; biomass formation; thermodynamics; entropy production; respiration; radiative energy; plant physiology; crop science; ecosystem productivity; climate-response modelling; bioenergetics; sustainable agriculture; precision agriculture.

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