Unraveling Plant-Rhizosphere-Microbe Interactions: An Overview

摘要

The 'Rhizosphere' is a biologically active zone of the soils around plant roots that contains soil borne microbes including bacteria and fungi. Plant-microbe interactions in the rhizosphere can be beneficial to the plants, the microbes or to neither of them. Biogeochemicals processes in the rhizosphere influence a host of landscape and global scale processes. A better understanding of these processes is critical for maintaining the health of the planet and feeding the organisms that live on it. Thereis a small but concerted effort under way to harness the root system of plants in an attempt to increase field potentials of staple food crops in order to meet the projected doubling in global food demand in next 30 years. The efforts are being done inthe face of a critical of a changing global climate and increasing global population which will inevitably require more productively grown food, feed and fiber on less optimal lands; a condition already encountered in many developing countries. One of the major difficulties that plant biologists and microbiologists vis-a-vis ecologists and environmentalists face when studying the plant-soil interactions in the rhizosphere that inhabit this zone is that they are not cultivable in the laboratories. Recentdevelopments in molecular biology methods are shedding some light on rhizosphere microbial diversity. Meeting the global challenges of climate and population growth with a better understanding and control, rhizosphere processes will be one of the most important science frontiers of the next decade for which a diverse interdisciplinary trained workforce will be required.