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Caloric content of phytoplankton
Author(s) -
PLATT TREVOR,
IRWIN BRIAN
Publication year - 1973
Publication title -
limnology and oceanography
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.7
H-Index - 197
eISSN - 1939-5590
pISSN - 0024-3590
DOI - 10.4319/lo.1973.18.2.0306
Subject(s) - caloric theory , phytoplankton , environmental science , carbon fibers , production (economics) , heat of combustion , content (measure theory) , mathematics , nutrient , ecology , biology , chemistry , physics , economics , algorithm , thermodynamics , mathematical analysis , macroeconomics , organic chemistry , composite number , combustion
There are important theoretical and empirical reasons for expressing calorific values in terms of grams of carbon rather than grams dry weight. For phytoplankton, calorific value may be predicted with fairly high accuracy from carbon content, enabling much smaller samples to be used and resulting in a considerable saving in time. This removes the biggest stumbling block to the routine measurement of the energy efficiency of primary production.