ABSTRACT
The attention to the relationship between biovolume and biomass stems mainly from the need for a conversion between the two. Though the objective of most studies is the assessment of microbial biomass, usually as carbon, biovolume is more often determined, as this parameter is more easily obtained from dimensions of individual organisms observed, e.g., under the light microscope. Next, biomass is estimated, usually assuming that a constant ratio exists between carbon and biovolume, by applying an experimentally obtained conversion factor. The term biomass will be used to mean any unspecified measure of main cell material (e.g., dry weight, carbon content, or protein) when the exact nature of the biomass is inconsequential for the discussion. Another implication is that they find a cell number to biomass conversion factor more appropriate than a factor converting biovolume into biomass, at least for cells in the range reported.
