Chlorophyll fluorescence and "Maximum Quantum Efficiency" of photosystem II in plant sciences

Research article: Chlorophyll fluorescence and "Maximum Quantum Efficiency" of photosystem II in plant sciences

Author: Y.M. Feyziyev*

Institute of Molecular Biology & Biotechnologies, Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences, 11 Izzat Nabiyev, Baku AZ 1073, Azerbaijan; *For correspondence: y.feyziyev@imbb.science.az

Accepted for publication: 20 November 2019

Abstract: 

The fluorescence of chlorophyll a is widely used as an indicator of the state of photosystem II (PSII) in plants, algae and cyanobacteria. There were reports on ~ 20 various parameters of fluorescence of PSII chlorophyll. Three of these characteristics, the initial (F0), maximum (FM) and variable (FV) fluorescence of chlorophyll, and the derivative value (FM-F0)/FM, called by different authors a “ma-ximum quantum efficiency” of PSII, are reviewed in this paper. A brief and comparative analysis of the Duysens hypothesis (Duysens and Sweers, 1963) and Klimov's hypothesis of recombination luminescence (Klimov et al., 1978) widely used to describe the processes in the PSII reaction center was carried out. Eventual errors due to inaccuracy in the applications of the parameter "maximum quantum efficiency" of PSII used to evaluate the photochemical activity of the photosynthetic appa-ratus and the physiological state of plants are discussed.

Keywords: Photosystem II, chlorophyll fluorescence, maximum quantum efficiency

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