• Question: Why do leaves change color in autumn?

    Asked by kaitlyn to Emma, Monica, Sebastian, Sinead, Thomas on 14 Nov 2016.
    • Photo: Sebastian Gornik

      Sebastian Gornik answered on 14 Nov 2016:

      In autumn, when the daylight hours get less most plants drop their leaves. Before they do so they remove all the important nutrients from the leaves and the leave then slowly die. During this process the colour pigment plants use to harvest sunlight – so called chlorophyll – degrades. The pigment is normally green, when it degrades however it changes colour. This is the different colours we see in autumn. It shows the leaves are dying and ready to fall off.

    • Photo: Emma Roycroft

      Emma Roycroft answered on 15 Nov 2016:

      I don’t know exactly why they change colour, but trees go through a never-ending cycle of growth and decay, just like the cells in our bodies.

    • Photo: Thomas McLoughlin

      Thomas McLoughlin answered on 15 Nov 2016:

      a phenomena called plant death 0r senescence

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