Discriminating and continuous measurement of photosynthesis and respiration by monitoring 13CO2 and 12CO2 as tracers.

The simultaneous and discriminative measurement of the photosynthesis and the respiration of the plant was attained by simultaneous monitoring of 13CO2 and 12CO2 by artificial control of 13CO2 abundance of ambient air. The principle of the measurement is based on the following physiological processes. 6CO2 + 12H2O --> C6H12O6 + 6O2 + 6H2O, 6(13C)O2 + 12H2O --> (13C6)H12O6 + 6O2 + 6H2O, 6CO2 + 12H2(18O) --> C6H12O6 + 6(18O)18O + 6H20. Assuming that respiratory consumption of the new born carbon substrate fixed by photosynthesis is negligible during the measurement, the photosynthetic CO2 consumption VPCO2 and the respiratory CO2 production VRCO2 are measured according to the estimation (1) or (2), (1) for closed method, VPCO2 = k(V0 - V t)¿ F13CO2 + (F12CO2/F13CO2)F13CO2 ¿, VRCO2 = k(V0 - V t)¿ F12CO2 - (F12CO2/F13CO2)F13CO2 ¿, (2) for open method, VPCO2 = kVE ¿ (FI13CO2 - FE13CO2) + (F12CO2/F13CO2)(FI13CO2 - FE13CO2) ¿, VRCO2 = kVE ¿ (FI12CO2 - FE12CO2) - (F12CO2/F13CO2)(FI13CO2 - FE13CO2) ¿ where V0 is initial volume of growth chamber including attached flexible bag, FICO2 is the inlet or initial gas concentration of CO2 and FECO2 is the ambient gas concentration of CO2 in the chamber, V and VE are the sampling rate of mass spectrometer and the ventilation rate of the growth chamber respectively, k is the STPD conversion factor = ¿273(PB-PH2O)/760(273+tE)¿, tE(degrees C) is the ambient gas temperature. In the closed method, the gas container of the growth chamber is circulated, resulting FECO2 is varied according to the balance of consumption and production of CO2, while in the open method VE is controlled to keep FECO2 at a constant value. Both (1) and (2) methods were examined and evaluated on the measurements of komatsuna and maize.