Soil harbours a wide range of microorganisms with biotic potentials which can be explored for social benefits. The book Frontiers in Soil and Environmental Microbiology comprises an overview of the complex inter-relationship between beneficial soil microbes and crop plants, and highlights the potential for utilisation to enhance crop productivity, bioremediation and soil health. The book focusses on important areas of research such as biocide production, pesticide degradation and detoxification, microbial decay processes, remediation of soils contaminated with toxic metals, industrial wastes, and hydrocarbon pollutants. Features Presents the state of the art of microbial research in environmental and soil microbiology Discusses an integrated and systematic compilation of microbes in the soil environment and its role in agriculture and plant growth and productivity Elucidates microbial application in environmental remediation Explores advanced genomics topics for uncultivable microbes of soil

Protists are by far the most diverse and abundant eukaryotes in soils. Nevertheless, very little is known about individual representatives, the diversity and community composition and ecological functioning of these important organisms. For instance, soil protists are commonly lumped into a single functional unit, i.e. bacterivores. This work tackles missing knowledge gaps on soil protists and common misconceptions using multi-methodological approaches including cultivation, microcosm experiments and environmental sequencing. In a first part, several new species and genera of amoeboid protists are described showing their immense unknown diversity. In the second part, the enormous complexity of soil protists communities is highlighted using cultivation- and sequence-based approaches. In the third part, the present of diverse mycophagous and nematophagous protists are shown in functional studies on cultivated taxa and their environmental importance supported by sequence-based approaches. This work is just a start for a promising future of soil Protistology that is likely to find other important roles of these diverse organisms.

Soil harbours a wide range of microorganisms with biotic potentials which can be explored for social benefits. The book Frontiers in Soil and Environmental Microbiology comprises an overview of the complex inter-relationship between beneficial soil microbes and crop plants, and highlights the potential for utilisation to enhance crop productivity, bioremediation and soil health. The book focusses on important areas of research such as biocide production, pesticide degradation and detoxification, microbial decay processes, remediation of soils contaminated with toxic metals, industrial wastes, and hydrocarbon pollutants. Features Presents the state of the art of microbial research in environmental and soil microbiology Discusses an integrated and systematic compilation of microbes in the soil environment and its role in agriculture and plant growth and productivity Elucidates microbial application in environmental remediation Explores advanced genomics topics for uncultivable microbes of soil

Advances in next generation sequencing technologies, omics, and bioinformatics are revealing a tremendous and unsuspected diversity of microbes, both at a compositional and functional level. Moreover, the expansion of ecological concepts into microbial ecology has greatly advanced our comprehension of the role microbes play in the functioning of ecosystems across a wide range of biomes. Super-imposed on this new information about microbes, their functions and how they are organized, environmental gradients are changing rapidly, largely driven by direct and indirect human activities. In the context of global change, understanding the mechanisms that shape microbial communities is pivotal to predict microbial responses to novel selective forces and their implications at the local as well as global scale. One of the main features of microbial communities is their ability to react to changes in the environment. Thus, many studies have reported changes in the performance and composition of communities along environmental gradients. However, the mechanisms underlying these responses remain unclear. It is assumed that the response of microbes to changes in the environment is mediated by a complex combination of shifts in the physiological properties, single-cell activities, or composition of communities: it may occur by means of physiological adjustments of the taxa present in a community or selecting towards more tolerant/better adapted phylotypes. Knowing whether certain factors trigger one, many, or all mechanisms would greatly increase confidence in predictions of future microbial composition and processes. This Research Topic brings together studies that applied the latest molecular techniques for studying microbial composition and functioning and integrated ecological, biogeochemical and/or modeling approaches to provide a comprehensive and mechanistic perspective of the responses of micro-organisms to environmental changes. This Research Topic presents new findings on environmental parameters influencing microbial communities, the type and magnitude of response and differences in the response among microbial groups, and which collectively deepen our current understanding and knowledge of the underlying mechanisms of microbial structural and functional responses to environmental changes and gradients in both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. The body of work has, furthermore, identified many challenges and questions that yet remain to be addressed and new perspectives to follow up on.

Environmental and Agricultural Microbiology Uniquely reveals the state-of-the-art microbial research/advances in the environment and agriculture fields Environmental and Agricultural Microbiology: Applications for Sustainability is divided into two parts which embody chapters on sustenance and life cycles of microorganisms in various environmental conditions, their dispersal, interactions with other inhabited communities, metabolite production, and reclamation. Though books pertaining to soil & agricultural microbiology/environmental biotechnology are available, there is a dearth of comprehensive literature on the behavior of microorganisms in the environmental and agricultural realm. Part 1 includes bioremediation of agrochemicals by microalgae, detoxification of chromium and other heavy metals by microbial biofilm, microbial biopolymer technology including polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) and polyhydroxybutyrates (PHB), their production, degradability behaviors, and applications. Biosurfactants production and their commercial importance are also systematically represented in this part. Part 2 having 9 chapters, facilitates imperative ideas on approaches for sustainable agriculture through functional soil microbes, next-generation crop improvement strategies via rhizosphere microbiome, production and implementation of liquid biofertilizers, mitigation of methane from livestock, chitinases from microbes, extremozymes, an enzyme from extremophilic microorganism and their relevance in current biotechnology, lithobiontic communities, and their environmental importance, have all been comprehensively elaborated. In the era of sustainable energy production, biofuel and other bioenergy products play a key role, and their production from microbial sources are frontiers for researchers. The final chapter unveils the importance of microbes and their consortia for management of solid waste in amalgamation with biotechnology Audience The book will be read by environmental microbiologists, biotechnologists, chemical and agricultural engineers.

How to achieve sustainable agricultural production without compromising environmental quality, agro-ecosystem function and biodiversity is a serious consideration in current agricultural practices. Farming systems’ growing dependency on chemical inputs (fertilizers, pesticides, nutrients etc.) poses serious threats with regard to crop productivity, soil fertility, the nutritional value of farm produce, management of pests and diseases, agro-ecosystem well-being, and health issues for humans and animals. At the same time, microbial inoculants in the form of biofertilizers, plant growth promoters, biopesticides, soil health managers, etc. have gained considerable attention among researchers, agriculturists, farmers and policy makers. The first volume of the book Microbial Inoculants in Sustainable Agricultural Productivity - Research Perspectives highlights the efforts of global experts with regard to various aspects of microbial inoculants. Emphasis is placed on recent advances in microbiological techniques for the isolation, characterization, identification and evaluation of functional properties using biochemical and molecular tools. The taxonomic characterization of agriculturally important microorganisms is documented, along with their applications in field conditions. The book exploresthe identification, characterization and diversity analysis of endophytic microorganisms in various crops including legumes/ non-legumes, as well as the assessment of their beneficial impacts in the context of promotingplant growth. Moreover, it provides essential updates onthe diversity and role of plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) and arbuscular mycorrhizal mycorrhizal fungi (AMF). Further chaptersexamine in detailbiopesticides, thehigh-density cultivation of bioinoculants in submerged culture, seed biopriming strategies for abiotic and biotic stress tolerance, andPGPR as abio-control agent. Given its content,the book offers a valuable resource for researchers involved in research and development concerningPGPR, biopesticides and microbial inoculants.