Approaches for Measuring Stable Carbon and Nitrogen Isotopes in Bacteria

摘要

Stable isotopes have been used successfully over the past three decades to trace geochemical cycles and pathways of elemental transfer through aquatic food chains. This technique, however, has only recently been used to examine aquatic microbial roles in elemental cycling. The major obstacle to measuring stable isotope compositions in bacteria has been the concentration of enough bacteria and separation of bacteria from other microorganisms and bacterial-sized particles. The paper describes direct and indirect approaches developed to measure stable carbon and nitrogen isotope compositions and sources of bacterial carbon and nitrogen. (Copyright (c) 1993 by Lewis Publishers.)