Unravelling The Soil Microbiome

This book explores the significance of soil microbial diversity to understand its utility in soil functions, ecosystem services, environmental sustainability, and achieving the sustainable development goals. With a focus on agriculture and environment, the book highlights the importance of the microbial world by providing state-of-the-art technologies for examining the structural and functional attributes of soil microbial diversity for applications in healthcare, industrial biotechnology, and bioremediation studies. In seven chapters, the book will act as a primer for students, environmental biotechnologists, microbial ecologists, plant scientists, and agricultural microbiologists. Chapter 1 introduces readers to the soil microbiome, and chapter 2 discusses the below ground microbial world. Chapter 3 addresses various methods for exploring microbial diversity, chapter 4 discusses the genomics methods, chapter 5 provides the metaproteomics and metatranscriptomics approaches and chapter 6 details the bioinformatics tools for soil microbial community analysis, and chapter 7 concludes the text with future perspectives on further soil microbial uses and applications.

Unravelling Plant-Microbe Synergy focuses on agriculturally important microorganisms (AIM’s) that are indigenous to soil and roots of the plant. These microbes contributing to nutrient balance, growth regulators, suppressing pathogens, alleviate stress response, orchestrating immune response and improving crop performance as they are offering sustainable and alternative solutions to the use of chemicals in agriculture. As plant microbe synergy is an enthralling subject, is multidisciplinary in nature, and concerns scientists involved in applied, and environmental microbiology and plant health and plant protection, Unravelling Plant-Microbe Synergy is an ideal resource that emphasizes the current trends of, and probable future of, microbes mediated amelioration of abiotic and biotic stress, agriculture sustainability, induced systemic tolerance and plant health protection. Unravelling Plant-Microbe Synergy discloses the microbial interaction for stress management and provides a better understanding to know the recent mechanisms to cope these environmental stresses. Unravelling Plant-Microbe Synergy bridges the gap in recent advances in the microbes interaction and rhizosphere engineering. Emphasizes the plant microbes interactions, induced systemic tolerance, stress responsive genes and diversity of microorganisms Illustrates the current impact of climate change on plant productivity along with mitigation strategies Provides a two-way interactive approach to both plants and microbes, and includes multi-omics approaches

This book focuses on cold habitat microbes as a potential source of elite enzymes and secondary metabolites to meet the growing demands of the pharmaceutical, food and biotechnological industries. Microbes living in such extremely cold conditions are reported to produce various biomolecules with potential biotechnological applications. The book overviews recent research trends to discover such important biomolecules and also suggests future research directions to discover such elite novel biomolecules. Salient features: Covers studies on various biotic communities and abiotic components of the soil of terrestrial habitats with a focus on cold habitats Discusses various 'Omic' approaches: metagenomics and meta-transcriptomics Lists adaptation strategies adopted by cold-adapted microbes Highlights various biotechnological and industrially important biomolecules produced by cold-adapted microbes Explores the role of microbial biofilm in the degradation of microplastics in cold habitats

This book encompasses current knowledge of soil microbiomes and their potential biotechnological application for plant growth, crop yield, and soil health under the natural as well as harsh environmental conditions for sustainable agriculture. The microbes are ubiquitous in nature. The soil is a natural hotspot of the soil microbiome. The soil microbiome plays a critical role in the maintenance of global nutrient balance and ecosystem functioning. The soil microbiomes are associated with plant ecosystems through the intense network of plant–microbe interactions. The microbes present in bulk soil move toward the rhizospheric region due to the release of different nutrients by plant systems. The rhizospheric microbes may survive or proliferate in rhizospheric zone depending on the extent of influences of the chemicals secreted into the soil by roots. The root exudates contain the principal nutrients factors (amino acids, glucose, fructose, and sucrose). The microbes present in rhizospheric region have capabilities to fix atmospheric nitrogen, produce different phytohormones, and solubilize phosphorus, potassium, and zinc. The plant systems take these nutrients for their growth and developments. These soil and plant associated microbes also play an important role in protection of plants from different plant pathogenic organisms by producing different secondary metabolites such as ammonia, hydrogen cyanide, siderophores, and hydrolytic enzymes. The soil microbiomes with plant growth-promoting (PGP) attributes have emerged as an important and promising tool for sustainable agriculture. The soil microbiomes promote the plant growth and enhance the crop yield and soil fertility via directly or indirectly different plant growth-promoting mechanism. The soil microbes help the plant for adaptation in extreme habitats by mitigating the abiotic stress of high/low temperatures, hypersalinity, drought, and acidic/alkaline soil. These PGP microbes are used as biofertilizers/bioinoculants to replace the harmful chemical fertilizers for sustainable agriculture and environments. The aim of the book “Soil Microbiomes for Sustainable Agriculture” is to provide the recent advances in mechanisms of plant growth promotion and applications of soil microbiomes for mitigation of different abiotic stresses in plants. The book is useful to scientists, researchers, and students related to microbiology, biotechnology, agriculture, molecular biology, environmental biology, and related subjects.

The living soil is crucial to photosynthesis, biogeochemical cycles, global food production, climate change, biodiversity, and plant and animal health. In the past decade, scientists have made significant advances in soil microbiology research. While the basic principles are now better understood, knowledge has been forthcoming on the best available technologies and methods applied to researching soil microorganisms, their diversity, interactions, biochemistry, survival, gene expression, and their roles in global climate change, plant disease suppression and growth stimulation, and biogeochemical cycles. This knowledge can be applied to better predict the transformation of pollutants in soil and the activities of microbes in the rhizosphere. It will also assist us in fostering crop production in an era with an increasing human population and intensification of agriculture. Following the tradition of its predecessors, Modern Soil Microbiology, Third Edition, is an indispensable source that supports graduate/undergraduate teaching for soil and environmental microbiologists in academia, as well as in government and industrial laboratories. It is a comprehensive collection of chapters on various aspects of soil microbiology, useful for all professionals working with soils. Compiled by internationally renowned educators and research scholars, this textbook contains key tables, figures, and photographs, supported by thousands of references to illustrate the depth of knowledge in soil microbiology. FEATURES Fully updated and expanded to include new key chapters on historical developments, future applications, and soil viruses and proteins Discusses molecular methods applied to soil microbiology, diverse soil microorganisms, and global climate change Emphasizes the role of terrestrial microorganisms and cycles involved in climate change Details the latest molecular methods applied to soil microbiology research User-friendly for students, and containing numerous tables, figures, and illustrations to better understand the current knowledge in soil microbiology

In the ten years since the publication of Modern Soil Microbiology, the study of soil microbiology has significantly changed, both in the understanding of the diversity and function of soil microbial communities and in research methods. Ideal for students in a variety of disciplines, this second edition provides a cutting-edge examination of a fascinating discipline that encompasses ecology, physiology, genetics, molecular biology, and biotechnology, and makes use of biochemical and biophysical approaches. The chapters cover topics ranging from the fundamental to the applied and describe the use of advanced methods that have provided a great thrust to the discipline of soil microbiology. Using the latest molecular analyses, they integrate principles of soil microbiology with novel insights into the physiology of soil microorganisms. The authors discuss the soil and rhizosphere as habitats for microorganisms, then go on to describe the different microbial groups, their adaptive responses, and their respective processes in interactive and functional terms. The book highlights a range of applied aspects of soil microbiology, including the nature of disease-suppressive soils, the use of biological control agents, biopesticides and bioremediation agents, and the need for correct statistics and experimentation in the analyses of the data obtained from soil systems.

This book presents a comprehensive collection of articles illustrating the importance of microbial community structure and function for ecosystem sustainability and environmental reclamation. It addresses a diverse range of topics, including microbial diversity, physiology, genomics, ecosystem function, interaction, metabolism, and the fruitful use of microbial communities for crop productivity and environmental remediation. In addition, the book explores issues ranging from general concepts on the diversity of microorganisms in soil, and ecosystem function to the evolution and taxonomy of soil microbiota, with future prospects. It covers cutting-edge methods in soil microbial ecological studies, rhizosphere microflora, the role of organic matter in plant productivity, biological nitrogen fixation and its genetics, microbial transformation of plant nutrients in soil, plant-growth-promoting rhizobacteria, and organic matter transformation. The book also discusses the application of microbes in biodegradation of xenobiotic contaminants. It covers bio-fertilizers and their role in sustainable agriculture and soil health, biological control of insect pests and plant pathogens, and the latest tools of omics in soil microbiology, i.e. genomics, proteomics, transcriptomics and metabolomics, which offer pioneering approaches to the exploration of microbial structure and function.

This summary is based on 'A review of the impacts of crop production on the soil microbiome: Innovations and policy recommendations to address environmental degradation, climate change and human health', produced by the informal FAO microbiome working group. The review makes clear that the soil microbiome plays a pivotal role in ecosystem health, agroecosystems, and the climate system. The review is among the first of several publications by the group that will address different microbiome ecosystems and their relatively underexplored potential to alleviate global problems.

The soil and the plant. The microbe and its activities. The soil population and its distribution. Rôle of microbes in the decomposition of organic substances in the soil. Transformation of nitrogen by soil microbes. Transformation of mineral substances in soil through the direct or indirect action of microorganisms. Interrelationships between higher plants and soil microorganisms. Modification of the soil population. Importance of microbes in soil fertility.