Understanding the flux and turnover of phosphorus (P) in the environment is important due to the key role P plays in eutrophication and in the ambition to find cost-effective measures to mitigate it. Orthophosphate diesters, including DNA and phospholipids (PLs), represent a potentially degradable P pool that could support future primary production and eutrophication. In this study, extraction techniques were optimized and combined with colorimetric determination of extracted P to provide a selective quantification method for DNA-P and PL-P in agricultural soil, sediment and composted manure. The proposed method is rapid and reproducible with an RSD of <10%. Recovery, evaluated by spiking the sample matrices with DNA and PL standards, was over 95% for both DNA and PLs. The method can be used for the determination of the pool size of the two organic P fractions. Results show that DNA-P comprises 3.0% by weight of the total P (TP) content in the studied soil, 10.4% in the sediment and 8.4% in the compost samples. The values for PL-P are 0.5%, 6.0% and 1.7% for soil, sediment and compost, respectively.
Keywords: (InsP(6)); (MS); (NMR); (PL); (SDS); (TP); Compost; Extraction; Organic phosphorus; Sediment; Soil; mass spectrometry; myo-Inositol hexakis (dihydrogenphosphate); nuclear magnetic resonance; phospholipid; sodium dodecyl sulfate; total phosphorus.
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