Chlorophyll is broken down in leaves during Fall to colorless tetrapyrroles, so-called phyllobilanes, which are degraded further in leaves into yellow oxidation products. The hypothetical “missing link” between the colorless and the yellow catabolites has now appeared on the scene, as described in the Full Paper by B. Kräutler et al. on page 136 ff.
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Vergeiner et al. (2014) studied this question.