PREFACE
When I was asked to organize this symposium on marine productivity, it made me reflect on what aspects of this subject would be
stimulating to a heterogeneous group of laboratory-oriented physiologists and biochemists. In recent years there have been several books
which discusses the methodology commonly used in primary production
studies and described the magnitude of photosynthetic CO 2 reduction
in various areas of the world's oceans. I therefore decided to dispense with these conventional aspects of primary production and invite
researchers to speak on a variety of problems relating the abundance
and activity of phytoplankton to environmental conditions. The lectures
I invited were thus quite diverse in character, but all were related
either to factors affecting the rate of photosynthesis or to the fate
of reduced carbon as it passes through the microbial food web.
In addition to these talks the participants benefited from a
number of shorter presentations and poster sessions which dealt with
production and cycling of organic carbon in the marine environment.
February 1984
Osmund HOLM-HANSEN
When I was asked to organize this symposium on marine productivity, it made me reflect on what aspects of this subject would be
stimulating to a heterogeneous group of laboratory-oriented physiologists and biochemists. In recent years there have been several books
which discusses the methodology commonly used in primary production
studies and described the magnitude of photosynthetic CO 2 reduction
in various areas of the world's oceans. I therefore decided to dispense with these conventional aspects of primary production and invite
researchers to speak on a variety of problems relating the abundance
and activity of phytoplankton to environmental conditions. The lectures
I invited were thus quite diverse in character, but all were related
either to factors affecting the rate of photosynthesis or to the fate
of reduced carbon as it passes through the microbial food web.
In addition to these talks the participants benefited from a
number of shorter presentations and poster sessions which dealt with
production and cycling of organic carbon in the marine environment.
February 1984
Osmund HOLM-HANSEN