Physico-Chemical Behavior of Soil Bacteria in Relation to the Soil Colloid

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Abstract
Soil bacteria live in the presence of organic and inorganic colloidal systems obtaining their nutritive elements almost entirely from these complexes. The degree of availability of an ion adsorbed by the colloidal material of the soil to a bacterial cell is probably governed by relative and differential adsorbability of the ions by these colloidal systems. From the exchange values obtained by displacing adsorbed methylene blue from bacterial cells with ions it was shown that these were adsorbed in the following order: monovalent ions, divalent ions, and trivalent ions. Consideration was also given to the close proximity of soil colloidal particles and bacteria which resulted in a greatly increased growth of the organism over that obtained in ordinary solution media.

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