Role of Beneficial Rhizosphere Microbes on Mineral Acquisition in Crops
A special issue of Plants (ISSN 2223-7747). This special issue belongs to the section "Plant Nutrition".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 August 2025 | Viewed by 1553
Special Issue Editor
Interests: regulation of physiological and morphological responses to nutrient deficiencies; molecular mechanisms of stress responses; interactions between hormones and other signals; the role of beneficial rhizosphere microbes on mineral acquisition
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
With the world's population expected to reach approximately 9 billion by 2050, food production needs to increase by 70 percent. Mineral nutrition deficiency is one of the most important agronomical problems. Current production systems are based on the use of high-yielding varieties and the application of large quantities of agrochemicals, which causes major environmental problems. One more sustainable alternative to the use of synthetic fertilizers is the use of beneficial microorganisms. To cope with nutrient deficiencies, plants develop morphological and physiological responses, mainly in their roots, aimed to facilitate nutrient acquisition. In the last years, it has been found that some rhizosphere microbes can induce physiological and morphological responses in roots of plants similar to the ones induced by plants under nutrient deficiencies. Elucidating the mode of action and main nodes of interconnection between rhizosphere microbes and nutrient deficiency response mechanisms is critical for optimizing the use of plant mutualistic microbes in agriculture.
Papers submitted to this article collection must report new results and the latest findings related to the roles of rhizosphere microbes on mineral nutrition in crops.
We particularly welcome manuscripts dealing with the following topics:
- Molecular, physiological or morphological mechanisms of action of microbes able to induce responses aimed to facilitate nutrient acquisition.
- Interaction of microbes with hormones implicated in nutrient deficiency responses regulation.
- Effects of applying individual microbial species or consortia of different microbial species.
All forms of submissions (i.e., original research papers, Mini Reviews, Methods, Perspectives, Hypothesis and Theories, and Opinion Articles) are welcome.
Dr. Carlos Lucena
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Plants is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- nutrient deficiency
- crops
- soil
- response
- microbial consortia
- nutrient acquisition
- hormones
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