The function chlA uses the trichromatic equations to convert absorbance values (wavelengths, in nm) to estimates of chlorophyll concentration using the equations from:
Jeffrey, S. W., and G. F. Humphrey. 1975. New spectrophotometric equations for determining chlorophylls a, b, c1 and c2 in higher plants, algae and natural phytoplankton. Biochem Physiol Pflanz BPP:191–194.
The function takes a data.frame with the following values in the column names (corresponding to wavelengths in the equations in Jeffrey & Humphrey): "480", "510", "630", "647", "664", and "750." Additional arguments include extraction container volume (vol) and, optionally, area of extration (area, representing surface area for epiphytic algae).
The function returns the same data.frame with columns appending for chlorophyll-a, -b, and -c, and phaeopigment concentrations.
# Create fake absorbance data
set.seed(3)
fake.chla.data = data.frame(
sample = letters[1:20],
X480nm = sample(seq(0, 0.04, 0.001), 20, replace = TRUE),
X510nm = sample(seq(0, 0.02, 0.001), 20, replace = TRUE),
X630nm = sample(seq(0, 0.015, 0.001), 20, replace = TRUE),
X647nm = sample(seq(0, 0.02, 0.001), 20, replace = TRUE),
X664nm = sample(seq(0, 0.08, 0.001), 20, replace = TRUE),
X750nm = sample(seq(0, 0.01, 0.001), 20, replace = TRUE)
)
# Run function
chlA(fake.chla.data)
# Run function with different volume
chlA(fake.chla.data, vol = 60)
# Run function but scale to area (in cm2)
chlA(fake.chla.data, area = 20)