Oxygen Isotope Fractionation during Photosynthesis in a Blue-Green and a Green Alga

Oxygen isotope fractionation ((18)O/(16)O) at the natural abundance level has been measured during photosynthesis of a blue-green and a green alga. When sufficient attention is paid to removal of contaminating air O(2) before and during the experiments, then the photosynthetic O(2) evolved, as compared to the water O(2), had an average difference of -0.36% for a blue-green alga and -0.80% for a green alga. These experiments suggest that there is no reason to invoke an inverse isotope effect in photosynthesis as part of the explanation for the (18)O enrichment in atmospheric O(2) relative to O(2) in oceanic waters. In addition, in an indirect way, the experiments also support the argument that the bulk of O(2) evolved during photosynthesis comes from water. A 10% contribution of O(2) arising from CO(2) would have been detectable in the present work.