APPLICATION OF THE PHOTOSYNTHESIS PACKAGE FOR MODELING PLANT PHOTOSYNTHESIS PROCESSES IN THE R SOFTWARE ENVIRONMENT

This paper presents a brief description of a model of photosynthesis for C3 plants developed by Graham Farquhar, Susanna von Kemmerer and Joseph Berry, which is designed to aid in the interpretation of gas exchange measurements during leaf CO2 assimilation and to represent C3 photosynthesis in the context of other systems such as stomatal regulation and the CO2 concentration function of C4 photosynthesis. The model is able to predict steady-state rates of CO2 assimilation under a variety of environmental conditions including light intensity, temperature, CO2 and O2 concentrations based on the kinetics of the key photosynthetic enzyme Rubisco. The model can be used to estimate in vivo Rubisco activity and chloroplast electron transfer capacity.