A rapid method to extract ergosterol from soil by physical disruption

• Published in: Applied soil ecology : a section of Agriculture, ecosystems & environment Vol. 17; no. 3; pp. 285 - 289
• Main Authors: Gong, Ping, Guan, Xin, Witter, Ernst
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 01.07.2001; Elsevier
• Subjects: Agronomy. Soil science and plant productions; Biochemistry; Biochemistry and biology; Biological and medical sciences; Chemical, physicochemical, biochemical and biological properties; Ergosterol; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Physical disruption; Physics, chemistry, biochemistry and biology of agricultural and forest soils; Soil; Soil science; Soil; Ergosterol; Physical disruption; Fungi; Rapid technique; Biochemical analysis; Extraction process; Cultivated soil; Biological marker; pH; Disruption; Microbial biomass; Physical method; Thallophyta
• ISSN: 0929-1393; 1873-0272
• DOI: 10.1016/S0929-1393(01)00141-X

A physical disruption method was developed to extract ergosterol from soil samples. The optimised procedure was to extract 4 g of moist soil with 6 ml of methanol by shaking for 1 h at 320 rpm in the presence of 4 g of glass beads. Approximately 102% of the spiked pure ergosterol (1, 2 and 30 μg g −1 soil) was recovered from nine agricultural soils using this method. As a biomarker of fungal biomass, the ratio of ergosterol content to microbial biomass in soil increased with the decreasing of soil pH, implying that acidic soil environment favoured fungi rather than bacteria. Results from this study indicate that the physical disruption method is a potentially promising method for ergosterol extraction in soil.