Chlorophyll a was used to assess the biomass of spores
in each Plexiglas plate. At the end of each experiment, all
plates were dried out at 60 °C for at least 24 h to remove
excess water. After this procedure, each plate was kept
inside individual covered plastic recipients containing
20 ml of ethanol, during at least 24 h in the dark and
inside a refrigerator, to allow chlorophyll a extraction.
The formula used to calculate chlorophyll a (μg cm−2)
was: