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LIGHT UTILIZATION AND PHOTOINHIBITION OF PHOTOSYNTHESIS IN MARINE PHYTOPLANKTON
Citation:
Falkowski, P., R. Greene, AND Z. Kolber. LIGHT UTILIZATION AND PHOTOINHIBITION OF PHOTOSYNTHESIS IN MARINE PHYTOPLANKTON. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., EPA/600/A-94/262.
Description:
Based on the record of the oldest identifiable fossils, the first oxygenic photosynthetic organisms appeared about 2 x 10 9 years ago in the form of marine single-celled, planktonic prokaryotes (Riding, 1992; Sarmiento and Bender, 1994) (planktonic was derived from the Greek planktos meaning 'to drift'). n the intervening eons, phytoplankton have evolved and diversified; presently they represent at least 11 classes of prokaryotic and eukaryotic photoautotrophs. hile the carbon of these organisms cumulatively amounts to only 1-2% of the global plant biomass, they fix between 35 and 50 gigatonnes (1 Gt = 10 9 metric tons) of carbon annually, about 40% of the global total (Falkowski and Woodhead, 1992). he areal concentration of phytoplankton chlorophyll averages 18 mg m-2 in the world oceans. his biomass converts approximately 0.13% of the photosynthetically active radiation (440-700 nm) incident on the sea surface to photochemical energy (Morel, 1978, 1991a). espite a great deal of variability in ocean environments, this photosynthetic conversion efficiency is relatively constant for integrated water column production (Falkowski, 1981; Morel, 1978, 1991a; Platt, 1986). ere we review the factors determining light utilization efficiency of phytoplankton in the oceans, and the physiological acclamations which have evolved to optimize light utilization efficiency.