A FORM-FUNCTION ANALYSIS OF PHOTON CAPTURE FOR SEAWEEDS

The ecological significance of photoadaptation and photoacclimation is at best inferential. This is attributed to two factors: 1) The dimensions of light absorption by multicellular tissues are inadequately described by theory, which is confounded by the interaction of polychromatic light fields with different light harvesting pigment-protein systems, the package effect, heterogeneous absorption and multiple scatter. 2) The practice of extrapolating light utilization for growth from physiological scale measurements, i.e. photosynthesis-incident light curves. Needed are parameters designed to yield the relation of light absorption properties (a function of LHPPs and tissue anatomy) to light utilization efficiency. The parameters, absorption cross section normalized to carbon (aC) and photon growth yield (PGY), the growth analog of quantum yield, are demonstrated here. © 1990 Kluwer Academic Publishers.