Synchronous cultures of the green alga Scenedesmus obliquus: Comparison of picosecond decay associated emission spectra and fluorescence induction kinetics

Abstract Decay-associated emission spectra of synchronized cultures of Scenedesmus obliquus have been studied at two stages of their life cycle corresponding to the maximum and minimum of photosynthetic capacity. These decay-associated spectra comprise three kinetic components. The two components which are assigned to photosystem II show variations in their relative amplitudes depending on the life cycle of the cells. From the correlations observed in the decay-associated fluorescence spectra on the one hand and the fluorescence induction parameters on the other hand we obtained further evidence that the two photosystem II fluorescence components are directly related to the two fluorescence induction phases. This correlation supports our previous assignment of the two photosystem II fluorescence decay components of about 0.3 ns and about 0.6 ns lifetimes at the F 0 level (open photosystem II reaction centres to photosystem II α units and photosystem II β units respectively. The most pronounced difference between cells at the 8th hour of the life cycle and those at the 16th hour consists in the size of the photosystem II β units which are about 30% larger for the latter. In agreement with previous studies it was found that at these two stages the photosystem I units do not differ in size.