Of the equations that have been proposed
to describe the utilization of light by
phytoplankton, a few are based on grossly
oversimplified models of photosynthesis;
the rest are completely empirical. This being
the case, the only valid criterion for
judging the relative merits of the different
formulations is their ability to describe
data with the minimum number of well
chosen parameters. As discussed at some
length in Platt et al. (1975), by “well