Assessment of bias in carbon isotope composition of organic leaf matter due to pre‐analysis milling methods

Worne, S ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7967-0864, Lacey, JH, Barr, C, Schulz, C and Leng, MJ, 2021. Assessment of bias in carbon isotope composition of organic leaf matter due to pre‐analysis milling methods. Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry: e9134. ISSN 0951-4198

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Abstract

Rationale: Stable isotope analysis of leaf material has many applications including assessment of plant water-use efficiency and palaeoclimatology. To facilitate interpretations of small shifts in the carbon isotope composition (δ13C) of leaves, accurate and repeatable results are required. Pre-sample homogenisation is essential to ensure a representative sample is analysed, but can also introduce error.

Methods: We investigate how different grinding methods (freezer-milling and ball-milling) affect the carbon content and δ13C of tree leaves from a wetland in Queensland, Australia, commenting on how increased temperature, sample contamination, sample loss or poor homogenisation may impact results.

Results: No alteration of leaf δ13C is observed due to different milling methods, although there may be a significant increase in %C of samples processed using ball-milling.

Conclusions: We suggest %C variability is possibly due to contamination from abraded plastic vials or insufficient homogenisation during ball-milling, with no significant impact on δ13C. Overall, we suggest that intermittent ball-milling may be the best solution to reduce costs, preparation time and use of liquid nitrogen, aiming to achieve complete homogenisation using the shortest possible duration of milling.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry
Creators:	Worne, S., Lacey, J.H., Barr, C., Schulz, C. and Leng, M.J.
Publisher:	Wiley
Date:	4 June 2021
ISSN:	0951-4198
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1002/rcm.9134 DOI 1593229 Other
Rights:	© 2021 The Authors. Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Animal, Rural and Environmental Sciences
Record created by:	Laura Ward
Date Added:	25 Aug 2022 15:22
Last Modified:	25 Aug 2022 15:22
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/46922

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