Question

explain why it is an advantage for plants to store carbohydrates as starch rather than as sugars​

Answer 1

Answer:

More energy are packed into less space by starch molecules far more than glucose or sucrose yet they are able to release this energy easily, hence maximizing both storage and mobilization.

Explanation:

When plants have a period of dormancy to survive, they store their food as starch. They store enough of this energy so as to be able to restart with and to be able to maintain metabolism for the entire period of dormancy.

In addition, we know that starch is not water soluble, hence, lacks the ability to pull water into storage cells or cause irregularity in water balance. More energy are packed into less space by starch molecules far more than glucose or sucrose yet they are able to release this energy easily, hence maximizing both storage and mobilization.

Glucose is not directly transported by plants to storage. Rather, in a plant stem, the form of carbohydrate being transported is sucrose and this is because it is a non-reducing and does not react with oxygen during transport in the stem to specialized storage plastids.

Answer 2

It is advantageous for plants to store carbohydrates as starch rather than as sugars because:

• sugars such as sucrose, fructose, and glucose are soluble and cannot be stored in the body of plant.
• as such, plants have to find a way to store their food reserves
• one way to store the food would be to store them in less soluble form that cannot be washed away easily and can also be converted to usable forms when needed.
• Hence, starch provides for that option.
• Cellulose could also have been a choice, but its structure makes it such that it becomes a permanent part of the plant and cannot be converted to usable food anymore.

Hence, it is advantageous to store carbohydrates as starch by plant rather than sugars because starch cannot be washed away easily and can also be converted to usable foods when needed.

More on starch can be found here: https://brainly.com/question/14278135