Abstract
The amounts and composition of non-structural soluble carbohydrates vary significantly among plant species, tissues and state of decomposition. These carbohydrates represent an often abundant and easily accessible and digestible resource to microorganisms associated with decomposing plant litter, and tend to be the first carbon fraction used by decomposers. This chapter describes a high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) technique to quantify bulk and individual soluble carbohydrates, which include both neutral and alcohol sugars. Plant litter is ground in liquid nitrogen and extracted in a methanol:chloroform:water (12:5:3) solution. The upper, polar phase containing the carbohydrates is collected. After reaction with orcinol reagent dissolved in concentrated sulphuric acid, total carbohydrate content is measured spectrophotometrically at 540 nm. Individual carbohydrates can also be separated, identified and quantified by HPLC on an anion exchange column, with sodium hydroxide/acetate as mobile phase and detection by pulsed amperometry (gold electrode). Given the variability and accessibility of soluble carbohydrates in plant tissues, it is important to quantify the dynamic changes in this carbon fraction to understand the microbial colonisation and decomposition of plant litter.
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Da Ros, L., Unda, F., Mansfield, S.D. (2020). Determination of Soluble Carbohydrates. In: Bärlocher, F., Gessner, M., Graça, M. (eds) Methods to Study Litter Decomposition. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30515-4_15
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30515-4_15
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