Czech Academy use FastOcean to understand photosynthesis

To understand how human activities & climate change affect marine environments an understanding of the role of phytoplankton & photosynthesis is needed. For the last 4 years, Dr Evelyn Lawrenz has been using Fast Repetition Rate (FRR) fluorometers to improve such photosynthesis & primary productivity measurements. Conventional photosynthesis techniques measure the amount of oxygen produced or CO2 tracer consumed. Both of these methods require that the water samples containing the phytoplankton are removed from their natural environment & are incubated which is time consuming & limits the no. of photosynthesis measurements one can make within a day. The FRR fluorometer, provides instantaneous photosynthesis measurements in real time. Moreover, these instruments can be deployed directly into the sea for long-term autonomous monitoring of photosynthetic performance providing high spatial & temporal resolution which is needed for measuring photosynthesis throughout the ocean.