Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 1989 Jan;78(1):93-96.
doi: 10.1007/BF00377202.

Ecological tannin assays: a critique

Affiliations

Ecological tannin assays: a critique

Simon Mole et al. Oecologia. 1989 Jan.

Abstract

The concept of protein precipitation potential has recently been introduced by Wisdom et al. (1987) as a means to combine chemical and protein precipitation assays of tannins for ecological studies. The definition of protein precipitation potential was not theoretically rigorous, and data analysis was obscure. Our attempts to repeat the tannin extraction procedure gave incomplete recovery (24% loss of quebracho) of condensed tannins, the only type considered by Wisdom et al. In contrast we found their method efficient for hydrolysable tannins (80% recovery of tannic acid) which were undetected by their chemical assay of tannins. Their protein precipitation assay was confounded by chemical interference from both types of tannins. We conclude with recommendations for this type of analysis.

Keywords: Methods; Protein assay; Tannin assay.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Oecologia. 1987 Jun;72 (3):395-401 - PubMed
    1. J Chem Ecol. 1983 Feb;9(2):285-94 - PubMed
    1. Oecologia. 1987 Apr;72 (1):137-147 - PubMed
    1. Oecologia. 1987 Sep;73(3):420-424 - PubMed
    1. J Chem Ecol. 1985 Nov;11(11):1535-44 - PubMed