A lycophyte's plight when the light is too bright

Plants cannot go to the store to buy sunscreen when they get too much sunlight. Instead, they use a suite of molecular processes that turn excess absorbed light energy into heat so that it can be harmlessly dissipated. These photoprotective processes collectively fall under the umbrella term “nonphotochemical quenching of chlorophyll fluorescence” which is often shortened to “nonphotochemical quenching” or “NPQ.” If excess sunlight is not dissipated via NPQ, it can result in damage and inactivation of the photosynthetic machinery, specifically photosystem II (PSII), that is energetically costly to repair. While many years of research have led to the identification of proteins and pigments involved in NPQ and of different pathways of NPQ, the underlying molecular mechanisms that plants use to dissipate excess light energy still remain unclear