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Use and misuse of PLFA measurements in soils

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Author

Summary, in English

The determination of the phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) pattern of soil organisms has become one of the most commonly used methods to study microbial community structure. Here we recapitulate the background of our work applying the PLFA method to soil in the early 1990s. We also stress that although the PLFA method was, and still is, a rapid and sensitive method to detect changes in the microbial community in soil, as with all popular methods it can be misused. We discuss problems in PLFA interpretation, the extent of turn-over of PLFAs in soil, and the flawed use of diversity indices to evaluate PLFA patterns. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Publishing year

2011

Language

English

Pages

1621-1625

Publication/Series

Soil Biology & Biochemistry

Volume

43

Issue

8

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Elsevier

Topic

  • Biological Sciences

Keywords

  • Soil
  • Community structure
  • PLFA
  • NLFA
  • Heavy metals
  • pH

Status

Published

Research group

  • Microbial Ecology

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0038-0717