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Updated: Mar 17, 2026

Measuring Phosphorus Release in Laboratory Microcosms for Water Quality Assessment
Published on: July 22, 2019
An inter-laboratory comparison of gaseous and liquid fumigation based methods for measuring microbial phosphorus
Fabian Bergkemper1, Else K Bünemann2, Simon Hauenstein3
1Research Unit Environmental Genomics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Ingolstädter Landstr. 1, 85764 Neuherberg, Germany.
Abstract:
In an inter-laboratory trial, gaseous ("CFE") and liquid fumigation ("Resin") based methods for measuring microbial phosphorus (Pmic) were compared, based on the analysis of soil samples from five forests, which differ in their P stocks. Both methods reliably detected the same Pmic gradient in the different soils. However, when the individual recovery rates of spiked P were taken into account, the "CFE" based methods consistently generated higher Pmic values (factor 2) compared to the "Resin" based approaches.
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