[Coral-List] measuring light respiration in corals

[Schutter, Miriam]

Dear coral-listers,
 
for my PhD research I am trying to create energy/carbon budgets of
scleractinian corals growing in aquaria under different abiotic
circumstances. One important parameter in such an energy/carbon budget
is light respiration. So far I am aware of two methods to measure light
respiration: the stable oxygen-isotope technique and the light/dark
shift technique using microsensors. Is anybody aware of other methods
that may have been developed to measure light respiration? I was
thinking about using a photosynthetic inhibitor to temporarily knock
down photosynthesis and then measure respiration. However, the
measurement should be harmless to the coral (nubbin), because I need to
do more measurements on the same coral(nubbin) during the experiment.
 
Thanks in advance for any suggestions,
 
 
Miriam Schutter MSc.
 
Wageningen University
Aquaculture and Fisheries Group
P.O. Box 338
6700 AH Wageningen
The Netherlands