On the Concepts and Correct Use of Radiometric Quantities for Assessing the Light Environment and Their Application to Plant Research

Light is one of the most important factors for photosynthetic organisms to grow. Historically, the amount of light in plant sciences has been referred to as light intensity, irradiance, photosynthetic active radiation, photon flux, photon flux density, etc. On occasion, all these terms are used interchangeably, yet they refer to different physical units and each metric offers distinct information. Even for experts in the fields of plant photobiology, the use of these terms is confusing, and there is a loose implementation of each concept. This makes the use of radiometric units even more confusing to non-experts when looking for ways to measure light, since they could easily feel overwhelmed by the specialized literature. The use of scientific concepts must be accurate, as ambiguity in the use of radiometric quantities can lead to inconsistencies in analysis, thus decreasing the comparability between experiments and to the formulation of incorrect experimental designs. In this review, we provide a simple yet comprehensive view of the use of radiometric quantities in an effort to clarify their meaning and applications. To facilitate understanding, we adopt a minimum amount of mathematical expressions and provide a historical summary of the use of radiometry (with emphasis on plant sciences), examples of uses, and a review of the available instrumentation for radiometric measurements.