Trends in Plant Science
Volume 5, Issue 1, 1 January 2000, Pages 12-17
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Review
The effect of water motion on short-term rates of photosynthesis by marine phytoplankton

https://doi.org/10.1016/S1360-1385(99)01504-6Get rights and content

Abstract

Phytoplankton respond to variations in light intensity as they are mixed through the water column. Changes in pigment content are characteristic of the relatively slow response of ‘sun–shade’ photoacclimation that occurs on timescales typical of mixing in the open ocean. In estuaries, the variations are much faster and induce correspondingly rapid changes in the activity (rather than abundance) of different components of the photosynthetic apparatus. These components modulate light harvesting and Calvin cycle activity, or protect the pigment bed from excess energy absorption. When the protective capacity is exceeded, photoinhibition occurs. All these mechanisms modulate the rate of photosynthesis in situ.

Section snippets

Environmental control of photosynthetic processes

By definition, phytoplankton are incapable of sustained directional movement and therefore are subject to the environmental conditions in their parent body of water. Photosynthesis is responsive to changes in nutrient availability on short timescales2 but in marine systems the changes are more likely to occur over relatively long timescales (days to seasons). Although nutrient availability is critical for determining population dynamics3 and the ultimate determinant of the geographic abundance

Kinetic models and the time-dependence of photosynthetic physiology

Short-term variability in photosynthetic rates can be accounted for in productivity models using time-dependent relationships. Generally, two assumptions are made, namely that the ocean can be considered as a one-dimensional system in the vertical and (in many models) that the time-dependence of photosynthetic processes follow first-order reaction kinetics. With an adequate understanding of the vertical variation in mixing rate, the trajectories of groups of cells can be described by a random

The future

It is now possible to evaluate how the photosynthetic apparatus is regulated under complex environmental forcing. The complexity of the environment–photosynthesis relationship is tractable using the notion of energy-balance regulation: the redox state of the light reactions is a universal signal in micro-algae for regulating cellular light harvesting efficiency. The success of recent pigment-photoacclimation models that incorporate an energy-balance regulatory ‘signal’ based on the redox state,

Acknowledgements

We thank two anonymous reviewers for their comments on the manuscript. This work was supported by Grants OCE-9730098 and OCE-9633633 from the National Science Foundation (USA) and is contribution No. 3239 from Horn Point Laboratory.

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