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Effect of light on oxygen and carbon dioxide fluxes and on metabolic quotients measured in situ in a zooxanthellate coral
Author(s) -
Gattuso J.P.,
Jaubert J.
Publication year - 1990
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.1990.35.8.1796
Subject(s) - zooxanthellae , photosynthesis , carbon dioxide , biology , botany , respiratory quotient , coral , flux (metallurgy) , stylophora pistillata , oxygen , ecology , environmental chemistry , chemistry , symbiosis , biochemistry , genetics , organic chemistry , bacteria
Oxygen and CO 2 fluxes were measured in situ as a function of depth on colonies of two species of the zooxanthellate coral Stylophora and were used to compute metabolic quotients. We report for the first time on the photosynthetic quotient of zooxanthellae in hospite (PQ z ); it ranges from 1.14 to 1.57 and depends on the light regime (daily photosynthetic photon flux density). The comparative effect of light on PQ z and on the respiratory quotient of the coral suggests that glycerol is the main substance photosynthesized, translocated, and consumed in shallow‐water colonies, whereas it is replaced by lipid with decreasing light (increasing depth). Such a result is potentially important for the energy budget considerations of any plant‐animal endosymbiosis and provides some evidence that light controls the quality of products photosynthesized by the plant and catabolized by the host.