A THEORETICAL ANALYSIS OF THE CONTRIBUTION OF ALGAL CELLS TO THE ATTENUATION OF LIGHT WITHIN NATURAL WATERS II. SPHERICAL CELLS

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SUMMARY: A theoretical treatment of light attenuation within natural phytoplankton suspensions, developed in a previous paper, has now been applied to model suspensions of green and blue‐green algal cells and colonies, in order to obtain a quantitative assessment of the effects of changes in the phytoplankton canopy structure on light attenuation within the system. It is shown that for green algae suspended in water in which effectively all the blue light is removed by dissolved yellow substances (gelbstoff) the light attenuation properties of the suspension are rather similar to those of an equivalent solution of algal pigments: this is because the individual cells have relatively low absorption values in the spectral region (545–655 nm) in which most of the transmitted light occurs. With blue‐green algae, which have a strong absorption in this region, there can be marked differences between the light attenuation properties of suspensions and of equivalent pigment solutions. The suspensions transmit substantially more photosynthetically active radiation than the solutions: the effect increases with cell/colony size, with algal concentration and with depth, and can amount to a difference of several‐fold. Values of vertical attenuation coefficients, and increments in attenuation coefficients per unit algal concentration, for the photosynthetic waveband have been calculated, and their dependence on pigment composition and cell/colony size is demonstrated. Calculations have also been carried out to show the relationship between the phytoplankton canopy structure, and the euphotic depth and maximum sustainable standing crop, of the suspension.

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