The fluorescence decay characteristics of the isolated light-harvesting chlorophyll a/b protein have been studied using low-intensity subnanosecond-resolution time-correlated single-photon counting. In the monomeric state in detergent micelles, the chlorophyll a/b protein exhibits biexponential decay (~t = 1.2 ns, ~'2 = 3.3 ns) with the two components having very similar weights. The decay para...

Thermal and chlorophyll fluorescence imaging are powerful tools for the study of spatial and temporal heterogeneity of leaf transpiration and photosynthetic performance. The relative advantages and disadvantages of these techniques are discussed. When combined, they can highlight pre-symptomatic responses not yet apparent in visual spectrum images and provide specific signatures for diagnosis o...

A passive light microscope system has been developed, capable of reconstructing an extended-focus 3-D cell-level image of chlorophyll fluorescence and Phi(PSII) of intact attached leaves using a limited number of focal plane images of chlorophyll fluorescence. Using this system, the relationships between the depth of the mesophyll cells in spongy tissue and the intensity of the chlorophyll fluo...

Leaves within a canopy are exposed to a spatially and temporally fluctuating light environment which may cause lateral gradients in leaf internal CO(2) concentration and diffusion between shaded and illuminated areas. In previous studies it was hypothesized that lateral CO(2) diffusion may support leaf photosynthesis, but the magnitude of this effect is still not well understood. In the present...

Absorption and fluorescence experiments on pheophytin and chlorophyll containing lipid bilayer vesicles are reported. Pheophytin aggregates on the vesicles are established from an additional red shifted band (at 695 nm) in the absorption spectrum. These aggregates contain pheophytin in an arrangement with the molecular planes of the porphyrin rings being parallel and cover about 10% of the vesi...

Chlorophyll b was first detectable after 10 minutes of illumination of etiolated pea seedlings (Pisum sativum L. var Greenfeast) with continuous white light. The chlorophyll a/b ratio decreased from 300 at 10 minutes to 15 after 1 hour. There was little change in the chlorophyll a/b ratio between 1 and 2 hours, and it declined to 3 between 2 and 5 hours of illumination. In red light, the time c...

This paper presents spectroscopic investigations of IsiA, a chlorophyll a-binding membrane protein produced by cyanobacteria grown in iron-deficient environments. IsiA, if associated with photosystem I, supports photosystem I in light harvesting by efficiently transferring excitation energy. However, if separated from photosystem I, IsiA exhibits considerable excitation quenching observed as a ...

Changes in the functional organization of chlorophyll occur during light-dependent chlorophyll accumulation in yellow mutants of Chlamydomonas reinhardti£ These changes were studied using single-photon counting techniques to determine the chlorophyll fluorescence decay kinetics at various times after transfer of de-greened cultures to the light. Several different yellow mutants were analyzed: y...

The techniques utilized to extract chlorophyll from plant materials are destructive and based on methods that use organic solvents. This study proposes the non-destructive quantification of chlorophyll and nitrogen concentration using a portable chlorophyll meter (SPAD-502). Further, was possible to establish relationships between chlorophyll fluorescence and SPAD-502 values. This methodology c...

1. The percent inhibition of oxygen evolution by a given herbicide concentration is the same at various light intensities except at very low intensities where the percent inhibition becomes larger. The same results are obtained with the herbicide DCMU. 2. The concentration of DCMU causing 50% inhibition of oxygen evolution decreases with de­ creasing chloroplast (and thus of chlorophyll) concen...