Density fractionation reworked: Reduce material and costs

Abstract

Soil density fractionation is a common tool to separate organic matter of different function and turnover. But it has not been tested so far how much soil material is necessary to obtain reproducible results. A reduction of chemicals like polytungstate would further save valuable resources. Here, we show that soil weight reduction from 25 to 5 g was not significantly affecting fractionation results. Compared to the commonly used 10–25 g, this corresponds to a saving of resources of up to 80%.