| During photosynthesis, absorbed energy that is not used in photochemical reactions dissipates as fluorescence. Fluorescence provides important information on the physiological conditions of the studied organisms and its measurement is widely used by plant physiologists and can be valuable in phytoplankton studies. We describe a method adapting a plant fluorometric equipment to measure the photosynthetic capacity of microalgae. Unialgal cultures of three planktonic chlorophytes were exposed to 3(3,4-dichlorophenyl)-1,1-dimethylurea (DCMU), an inhibitor of photosystem II, at concentrations of 0.1, 1.0 and 10.0 µmol.L-1. Estimates were made of photosynthetic parameters, including operational and potential photosystem II quantum yield and electron transport... |
