DIN ISO/TS 29843-2:2013-04

DIN ISO/TS 29843-2 specifies a simple method for the extraction of only phospholipid fatty acids (PLFA) from soils. DIN ISO/TS 29843 (DIN SPEC 91201) consists of the following parts, under the general title "Soil quality - Determination of soil microbial diversity": - Part 1: Method by phospholipid fatty acid analysis (PLFA) and phospholipid ether lipids (PLEL) analysis - Part 2: Method by phospholipid fatty acid analysis (PLFA) using the simple PLFA extraction method DIN ISO/TS 29843-2 is accessible to most research and analytical laboratories involved in soil sciences. This method can be used for a wide range of soils. It provides a broad diversity measurement of a soil microbial community at the phenotypic level. It can be applied to biomass estimation and can be used to differentiate microbial communities among different soil samples (with the aid of an adapted statistical method). The method is especially suitable for detecting rapid changes in the soil microbial community structure. It can also be used to give a rough description of microbial groups present in soil samples (for instance, Gram-positive bacterial, actinomycetes, fungi). The committee responsible for this standard is NA 119-01-02-04 UA "Biologische Verfahren" ("Biological methods") at DIN.