Antimicrobial Substances and Nitrogen Cycle in Agro-Ecosystems
A special issue of Antibiotics (ISSN 2079-6382).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (28 February 2021) | Viewed by 8878
Special Issue Editors
Interests: soil-plant-microbe interactions; soil ecology; nitrogen cycling in agroecosystems, agroecology, nitrification and denitrification
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: microbiology; ruminal ecosystem; nitrification and denitrification
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Nitrogen (N) is essential for crops and is the most limiting nutrient for crop production. For this reason, N is applied to the soil as a mineral or organic fertilizer, often in excess of the nutritional needs of the crops. It is presents under different forms in the soil, where it is mainly used by plants for their growth. Soil microbes also use nitrogen by assimilating inorganic N for the synthesis of N-containing organic compounds. Thus, microbes compete with crops for nitrogen. Some of the N applied to the soil with the fertilizer is lost by agroecosystems as nitrate (NO3-) by leaching and gases, mainly ammonia (NH3) and nitrous oxide (N2O). N loss as N2O is due to biological transformations, such as nitrification and denitrification. In the last decades, many natural or synthetic molecules have been identified as potential substances inhibiting N loss from agricultural soils. These substances, when added to fertilizer, act as antimicrobials by inhibiting soil microbe growth and reducing N2O production.
This Special Issue will accept reviews, as well as full or short research papers, from a broad scope of interdisciplinary research on antimicrobials in the context of the nitrogen cycle in agroecosystems.
Research papers on the following topics are particularly welcome:
- development of new antimicrobials inhibiting nitrification and denitrification
- biological nitrification/denitrification inhibition
- effects of antimicrobials on soil microbial community structure and function
Dr. Luca Vitale
Dr. Giuseppe Giuseppe Maglione
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- natural, semi-synthetic, and synthetic antimicrobials
- biological nitrification or denitrification inhibition
- ecotoxicity of antimicrobials
- nitrogen use efficiency
- fertilizers added with inhibitors
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