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Updated: Jul 2, 2025

High-throughput Fluorometric Measurement of Potential Soil Extracellular Enzyme Activities
Published on: November 15, 2013
"Energy and enthalpy" for microbial energetics in soil
Chaoqun Wang1,2,3, Yakov Kuzyakov4
1State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, China.
Abstract:
Energy is the driver of all microbial processes in soil. The changes in Gibbs energy are equal to the enthalpy changes during all processes in soil because these processes are ongoing under constant pressure and volume-without work generation. The enthalpy change by transformation of individual organic compounds or of complex organic matter in soil can be exactly quantified by the nominal oxidation state of carbon changes. Consequently, microbial energy use efficiency can be assessed by the complete combustion enthalpy of organic compounds when microorganisms use O2 as the terminal electron acceptor for microbial processes under aerobic conditions.
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