Technical note: Estimating light-use efficiency of benthic habitats using underwater O2 eddy covariance

Abstract

This Technical Note presents a technique that is novel to aquatic ecosystem research and may be highly useful. The approach is simple, but appears to be adequate for this first application. The manuscript is well written and concise, but minor changes can improve it. Specifically, the introduction could be improved by focusing, from the first sentence, on the scientific value that light use efficiency measurements can provide. This can be accomplished largely by rearranging text, but it will also require more citations. In addition, the Boltzmann equation can be more clearly presented. Finally, two additional figures would also improve the manuscript. The first would be of the C1 BGD Interactive comment Printer-friendly version Discussion paper sigmoidal fit to PAR data. The second would be of a diurnal time series of light use efficiency. A brief discussion of the data quality, patterns, and implications of that last, proposed, figure would be a valuable addition.