Frederick Frost Blackman FRS (25 July 1866 – 30 January 1947) was a British plant physiologist. Frederick Blackman was born in Lambeth, London to a doctor. He studied medicine at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, graduating MA. In the subsequent years, he studied

natural sciences Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeat ...

at the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

and was awarded DSc. He conducted research on plant physiology, in particular photosynthesis, in Cambridge until his retirement in 1936.

Gabrielle Matthaei Gabrielle Louise Caroline Howard (née Matthaei; 3 October 1876 – 18 August 1930), usually cited as G. L. C. Matthaei, was an English plant physiologist and economic botanist who advocated organic farming. Education and photosynthesis ...

was his assistant until 1905. He was elected in May 1906 a Fellow of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

, his candidature citation reading "Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge. Ex-Lecturer and now Reader in Botany in the University." He has made distinguished investigations in

plant physiology Plant physiology is a subdiscipline of botany concerned with the functioning, or physiology, of plants. Closely related fields include plant morphology (structure of plants), plant ecology (interactions with the environment), phytochemistry (b ...

. In 1921 he was awarded the

Royal Medal The Royal Medal, also known as The Queen's Medal and The King's Medal (depending on the gender of the monarch at the time of the award), is a silver-gilt medal, of which three are awarded each year by the Royal Society, two for "the most important ...

and in 1923 delivered the

Croonian lecture The Croonian Medal and Lecture is a prestigious award, a medal, and lecture given at the invitation of the Royal Society and the Royal College of Physicians. Among the papers of William Croone at his death in 1684, was a plan to endow a single ...

. He was buried at the Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground in Cambridge, with his wife Elsie (1882 - 1967).

Blackman's law of limiting factors

Blackman proposed the law of

limiting factor A limiting factor is a variable of a system that causes a noticeable change in output or another measure of a type of system. The limiting factor is in a pyramid shape of organisms going up from the producers to consumers and so on. A factor not l ...

s in 1905. According to this law, when a process depends on a number of factors, its rate is limited by the pace of the slowest factor. Blackman's law is illustrated by C O2 concentration as a limiting factor in the rate of oxygen production in

photosynthesis Photosynthesis is a process used by plants and other organisms to convert light energy into chemical energy that, through cellular respiration, can later be released to fuel the organism's activities. Some of this chemical energy is stored in ...

: Suppose a leaf is exposed to a certain light intensity which can use 5 mg. of C O2 per hour in photosynthesis. If only 1 mg. of C O2 enters the leaf in an hour, the rate of photosynthesis is limited due to C O2 factor. But as the concentration of the C O2 increases from 1 to 5 mg./hour the rate of photosynthesis is also increased.

Works

"Experimental researches in vegetable assimilation and respiration": * 1895: "On a new method for investigating the carbonic acid exchanges of plants",

Annals of Botany ''Annals of Botany'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal publishing experimental, theoretical and applied papers on all aspects of plant biology. The current (2022) Chief Editor is Rowan Sage, replacing John Seymour (Pat) Heslop-Harriso ...

9(1): 161 * 1895: "On the paths of gaseous exchange between areal leaves and the atmosphere", ''Annals of Botany'' * 1895: (with

) "On the effect of temperature on carbon dioxide assimilation" * 1905: (with Gabrielle Matthaei
A Quantitative Study of Carbon Dioxide Assimilation and Leaf Temperature in Natural Illumination
''Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society at London'' via

Jstor JSTOR (; short for ''Journal Storage'') is a digital library founded in 1995 in New York City. Originally containing digitized back issues of academic journals, it now encompasses books and other primary sources as well as current issues of j ...

* 1905: "Optima and Limiting Factors", ''Annals of Botany'',

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Blackman, Frederick Frost 1866 births 1947 deaths People from Lambeth British botanists Fellows of the Royal Society Royal Medal winners Plant physiologists

Blackman's law of limiting factors

Works

See also

References

Further reading

External links