Intrinsic growth rate: a new approach to evaluate the effects of temperature, photoperiod and phosphorus-nitrogen concentrations on duckweed growth under controlled eutrophication.

A comprehensive model based on a new approach was developed to simulate the duckweed growth under controlled conditions. Contrary to other approaches which use the specific growth rate, this approach uses the intrinsic growth rate which permits to differentiate the effect of duckweed mat density from that of temperature, photoperiod and phosphorus-nitrogen concentrations. The model was calibrated using data from laboratory experiments carried out during the present study and validated using other data from two literature sources. In both cases, the results demonstrated that the model was capable of predicting duckweed growth with a reliability of 95%.