Temperature Characteristics of the Microflora of Central African Soils

Abstract

THE importance of a knowledge of the effect of temperature on the metabolic activities of the soil microflora can scarcely be questioned, especially in the case of tropical soils. Furthermore, the temperature characteristic of the metabolic activities calculated by the Arrhenius's law: V = exp(−μ/RT), where V is the rate of the process, R the gas constant and T the absolute temperature, may be considered as the activation energy of the slowest or ‘pacemaking’ process in the chain of enzymatic mechanisms¹. In this case it would be possible to use this method as a kinetic analysis of the slowest enzymatic processes in the metabolism of the soil microflora.