ABSTRACT
Adenosine 50-triphosphate (ATP) levels determined by the firefly luciferin-luciferase bioluminescence technique have long been used as a measure of microbial biomass in soils and
sediments (Karl and LaRock 1975; Jenkinson et al. 1979; Verstraete et al. 1983; Maire 1984).
Early studies showed that the amount of soil ATP was highly correlated with soil microbial
biomass C, as determined using the chloroform fumigation-incubation or fumigation-
extraction methods (see Chapter 49) (Tate and Jenkinson 1982; Jenkinson 1988). Research
has confirmed a rather constant ratio of soil biomass C:ATP between 150 and 200 (De Nobili
et al. 1996). Recent studies have reported soil biomass C:ATP ratios of 208-217 for 14
agricultural soils (Martens 2001) and soil biomass ATP concentrations of 11 mM ATP g1
biomass C (Contin et al. 2002) and 11:4 mM ATP g1 biomass C (Dyckmans et al. 2003), which are comparable to 11:7 mM ATP g1 biomass C reported by Jenkinson (1988). These values are equivalent to ~6.1 mg ATP g1 biomass C or a soil biomass C:ATP ratio of 164 (assuming the anhydrous di-Mg salt of adenosine triphosphate has a formula weight of 553.8).
Beyond measurements of soil microbial biomass, researchers have applied ATP and ATP-
related measurements to monitor the impact of varied soil environments on microbiological
and biochemical processes (Dilly and Nannipieri 2001; Wen et al. 2001; Joergensen and
Raubuch 2002; Raubuch et al. 2002; Shannon et al. 2002; Joergensen and Raubuch 2003).
Also, ATP measurements have been used to study effects of multiyear applications of metal-
containing sewage sludges and wastes from mining and manufacturing (Chander et al. 2001;
Renella et al. 2003). In a review, Nannipieri et al. (1990) suggest that soil ATP content could
also be used as an index of microbiological activity because ATP measurements respond to
