Plants and microbes have co-evolved and interacted with each other in nature. Understanding the complex nature of the plant-microbe interface can pave the way for novel strategies to improve plant productivity in an eco-friendly manner. The microbes associated with plants, often called plant microbiota, are an integral part of plant life. The significance of the plant microbiome is a reliable approach toward sustainability to meet future food crises and rejuvenate soil health. Profiling plant-associate microbiomes (genome assemblies of all microbes) is an emerging concept in understanding plant-microbe interactions. Microbiota extends the plant capacity to acclimatize fluctuating environmental conditions through several mechanisms. Thus, unraveling the mystery of plant-microbe dynamics through latest technologies to better understand the role of metabolites and signal pathway mechanisms is very important. This book shares the latest insight on omics technologies to unravel plant-microbe dynamic interactions and other novel phytotechnologies for cleaning contaminated soils. Besides, it also provides brief insight on the recently discovered clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats CRISPR-Cas9, which is a genome editing tool to explore plant-microbe interactions and how this genome editing tool helps to improve the ability of microbes/plants to combat abiotic/biotic stresses.

Watersaturated soil and sediment ecosystems (i.e. wetlands) are ecologically as well as economically important systems due to their high productivity, their nutrient (re)cycling capacities and their prominent contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions. Being on the transition between terrestrial and – aquatic ecosystems, wetlands are buffers for terrestrial run off thereby preventing eutrophication of inland as well as coastal waters. The close proximity of oxic-anoxic conditions, often created by wetland plant roots, facilitates the simultaneous activity of aerobic as well as anaerobic microbial communities. Input of nutrients and fast recycling due to active aerobes and anaerobes makes these systems highly productive and therefore attractive for humans as well as many other organisms. Wetlands globally are under high pressure due to anthropogenic activities as well as climate change. Changes of land-use as well as altered hydrology due to climate change will lead to disturbance and loss of these habitats. However, the diversity and functioning of microbial communities in wetlands systems in highly underexplored in comparison to soils and aquatic ecosystems. Given the importance of wetlands and their immediate threats combined with the lack of knowledge on the microbiology of these systems is the basis for this special issue, focusing on the current microbiological knowledge and gaps therein to be assessed in future wetland research. Papers (research papers, reviews, perspectives, opinion papers) are welcomed that focus on all aspects that regulate the functioning and community composition of microbes (i.e. bacteria, archaea, protozoa, fungi) in wetland ecosystems (peat, coastal as well as freshwater marshes, flood plains, rice paddies, littoral zones of lakes etc) from all geographic regions. Welcomed topics are physiology, ecology, functioning, biodiversity, biogeography of microbes involved in nutrient cycling (C, N, P, Fe, Mn), green house gas emissions as well as plant-microbe interactions. These studies can be multidisciplinary and cover topics from the molecular to the community level.

This book shares the latest insights into the genetic basis of molecular communication between plants and their microbial consortia. Further, the book highlights the capabilities of the rhizosphere and endosphere, which help manage ecosystem responses to climate change, nutrient cycling and sequestration of carbon; and discusses their application to the development and management of renewable energy sources. In their natural environments, plants are surrounded by a tremendous number of microorganisms. Some microbes directly interact with plants in a mutually beneficial fashion, while others colonize plants solely for their own advantage. In addition, microbes can indirectly affect plants by drastically altering their environments. Understanding the complex nature of the plant-microbe interface (PMI) can pave the way for novel strategies to improve plant productivity in an eco-friendly manner. The PMI approach focuses on understanding the physical, molecular, and chemical interactions between organisms in order to determine their functional roles in biological, physical, chemical and environmental systems. Although several metabolites from plants and microbes have now been fully characterized, their roles in chemical interactions between these associates remain poorly understood, and require further investigation.

This books presents an updated compilation on fundamental interaction mechanisms of microbial communities with the plant roots and rhizosphere (belowground) and leaves and aerial parts (aboveground). Plant rhizopshere recruits its own microbial composition that survive there and help plants grow and develop better under biotic and abiotic conditions. Similar is the case with the beneficial microorganisms which are applied as inoculants with characteristic functions. The mechanism of plant-microbe interactions is interesting phenomenon in biological perspectives with numerous implications in the fields. The First volume focuses on the basic and fundamental mechanisms that have been worked out by the scientific communities taking into account different plant-microbe systems. This includes methods that decipher mechanisms at cellular, physiological, biochemical and molecular levels and the functions that are the final outcome of any beneficial or non-beneficial interactions in crop plants and microbes. Recent advances in this research area is covered in different book chapters that reflect the impact of microbial interactions on soil and plant health, dynamics of rhizosphere microbial communities, interaction mechanisms of microbes with multiple functional attributes, microbiome of contrasting crop production systems (organic vs conventional), mechanisms behind symbiotic and pathogenic interactions, endophytic (bacterial and fungal) interaction and benefits, rhizoplane and endosphere associations, signalling cascades and determinants in rhizosphere, quorum sensing in bacteria and impact on interaction, mycorrhizal interaction mechanisms, induced disease resistance and plant immunization, interaction mechanisms that suppress disease and belowground microbial crosstalk with plant rhizosphere. Methods based on multiphasic and multi-omics approaches were discussed in detail by the authors. Content-wise, the book offers an advanced account on various aspects of plant-microbe interactions and valuable implications in agro-ecological perspectives.

Nature’s high biomass productivity is based on biological N2 fixation (BNF) and biodiversity (Benckiser, 1997; Benckiser and Schnell, 2007). Although N2 makes up almost 80% of the atmosphere’s volume living organisms need it in only small quantities, presumably due to the paucity of natural ways of transforming this recalcitrant dinitrogen into reactive compounds. N shortage is commonly the most important limiting factor in crop production. The synthesis of ammonium from nitrogen and hydrogen, the Haber–Bosch (H-B) process, invented more than 100 years ago, became the holy grail of synthetic inorganic chemistry and removed the most ubiquitous limit on crop yields. H-B opened the way for the development and adoption of high-yielding cultivars, for monoculturing by organic and precision farming. With N over fertilization and pesticide application monoculturing farmers could approach Nature’s high biomass productivity by causing side effects the scientific world is investigating. This eBook presents the complexity the scientific world is facing in in understanding the soil-microbe-plant-animal cooperation, the millions of taxonomically, phylogenetically, and metabolically diverse above-below-ground species, involved in shaping the ever-changing biogeochemical process patterns being of great significance for food production networks and yield stability. Because ecosystem management and agricultural praxis are still largely conducted in isolation, the aim of this Frontiers’ eBook is to gather and interconnect plant-microbe-insect interaction research of various disciplines, studied with a broad spectrum of modern physical-chemical, biochemical, and molecular biological, agronomical techniques. The goal of this Research Topic was to gain a better understanding of microbe-plant-insect compositions, functioning, interactions, health, fitness, and productivity.

Plant-Microbe Interaction - Recent Advances in Molecular and Biochemical Approaches: Overview of Biochemical and Physiological Alteration During Plant-Microbe Interaction, Volume One covers the role of these plant microbes and their interaction between plants and microbes. These beneficial microbes, such as bacteria and fungi are also known as plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) through a biochemical reaction that may improve induced systemic resistance in the plant host via indirectly (against phytopathogens) or directly (the solubilization of mineral nutrients) by producing phytohormones and specific enzymes such as 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate deaminase. The book covers biochemical processes such as physiological, metabolic, etc. of plant and microbe interactions, the biochemistry of biological systems, the interaction of biological systems above-ground or within the rhizosphere, and the history of growth promoting microbiomes, their roles in phytoremediation efficiency, physiological and biochemical studies, chemical communication and signaling mechanisms. - Covers agricultural aspects in which the biochemistry in between plants and microbes helps us understand interactions in the rhizosphere - Helps readers understand the molecular and biochemical approaches of plant-microbe interactions - Enables an understanding of plant microbe interactions which will help to improve crop production

"A bold and successful attempt to illustrate the theoretical foundations of all of the subdisciplines of ecology, including basic and applied, and extending through biophysical, population, community, and ecosystem ecology. Encyclopedia of Theoretical Ecology is a compendium of clear and concise essays by the intellectual leaders across this vast breadth of knowledge."--Harold Mooney, Stanford University "A remarkable and indispensable reference work that also is flexible enough to provide essential readings for a wide variety of courses. A masterful collection of authoritative papers that convey the rich and fundamental nature of modern theoretical ecology."--Simon A. Levin, Princeton University "Theoretical ecologists exercise their imaginations to make sense of the astounding complexity of both real and possible ecosystems. Imagining a real or possible topic left out of the Encyclopedia of Theoretical Ecology has proven just as challenging. This comprehensive compendium demonstrates that theoretical ecology has become a mature science, and the volume will serve as the foundation for future creativity in this area."--Fred Adler, University of Utah "The editors have assembled an outstanding group of contributors who are a great match for their topics. Sometimes the author is a key, authoritative figure in a field; and at other times, the author has enough distance to convey all sides of a subject. The next time you need to introduce ecology students to a theoretical topic, you'll be glad to have this encyclopedia on your bookshelf."--Stephen Ellner, Cornell University “Everything you wanted to know about theoretical ecology, and much that you didn’t know you needed to know but will now! Alan Hastings and Louis Gross have done us a great service by bringing together in very accessible form a huge amount of information about a broad, complicated, and expanding field.”--Daniel Simberloff, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

This edited book volume aims to bringing out a comprehensive collection of latest information and developments on the management of biotic stresses by the use of rhizospheric microbes across the globe. The main focus of this book is to address the scientific and practical significance of rhizosphere microbes in biotic stress management. The microbial communities in the rhizosphere ecosystem play multitude of microbe-microbe, microbe-insect/pest and plant-microbe interactions and they have not yet been fully exploited to gain benefits in this field as well as to achieve sustainability in agriculture. Among the more recent strategies, stress tolerance/resistance induced by environment-friendly elicitors of microbial origin and/or rhizosphere microorganisms has emerged as a promising supplement in the approaches to crop protection. The proposed book entitled "Rhizosphere Microbes: Biotic Stress Management” is pertinent to rhizospheric microbe-mediated biotic stress management covering all spheres of biotic stress tolerance viz., bio-resources, diversity, ecology, and functioning of microbial bio-control agents, host–parasite interaction, strategies to characterize microbial bioinoculants, interactions of rhizosphere microbes by developing a fundamental understanding of the microbial communities, exploration of the diverse roles of microbes and microbial communities and their role in biotic stress tolerance, microbe-mediated mitigation of biotic stresses, quorum sensing, microbial signalling and cross-talk in the rhizosphere, biofilm formation, cell-to-cell communication, role of microorganisms in ecosystems functioning under various biotic stress conditions, application of microbial bio-pesticides, molecular studies using microbial systems, etc. This book is of interest to teachers, researchers, crop protection scientists, capacity builders and policymakers. Also the book serves as additional reading material for under-graduate, post-graduate, and post-doctorate fellow of agriculture, forestry, ecology, life science, and environmental sciences. National and international agricultural scientists, policy makers will also find this to be a useful read.

Here, an extremely experienced team of authors from five different continents provides a timely review of progress in the use and exploitation of soil bacteria to improve crop and plant growth. They present novel ideas on how to grow better, more successful crops, in an environmentally sound way, making this invaluable reading for those working in the pharmaceutical, biotechnological and agricultural industries.