Bacterial community tolerance to Cu in soils with geochemical baseline concentrations (GBCs) of heavy metals : Importance for pollution induced community tolerance (PICT) determinations using the leucine incorporation method
PICT (Pollution Induced Community Tolerance) to Cu is a useful and sensitive tool to assess the effects of Cu pollution in soils under laboratory conditions. However, in field situations, the absence of reference values, i.e. bacterial community tolerance to Cu baseline from non-polluted soils, make the method uncertain when we want to know if a soil is or is not polluted from a microbiological po