Sustainability of Microbial Ecosystems: Soil and Aquatic Microbial Diversity
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Sustainability and Applications".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2020) | Viewed by 87814
Special Issue Editor
Interests: environmental microbiology; environmental toxicology; bioremediation; proteomics; microalgae application
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Of the various ecosystem processes on Earth, nutrient cycling, crop productivity, and control of global warming are among those most important for supporting creatures. Because of the continuous human population growth and food crisis, substantial increases in crop production and sustainable use of soil and aquatic environments will be required. Understanding the factors which control the multiple functions linked to plant production and nutrient cycling under a changing environment is, thus, critical to preserve and manage soil and aquatic ecosystems. We posit that microbial diversity plays a key role in maintaining ecosystem multifunctionality by supporting processes, such as nitrogen fixation, litter decomposition, and organic matter mineralization, which allow the transfer of matter and energy between above- and belowground areas. However, we still have limited knowledge of the relationship between soil microbial diversity and soil/aquatic ecosystem functioning.
Microbial diversity is defined as the number of microbial species within a unit of area. Under the natural climate changes, or in the case of artificial treatments such as the application of biochar into agricultural soils, the soil/aquatic microbial diversity will all be affected. We all know that many environmental microorganisms are not easily obtainable as cultured strains in the laboratory. Hence, molecular bio-techniques, such as denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE), terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP), single-strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP), and next generation sequencing (NGS) have recently been used to study the diversity of microorganisms. These technologies are all for sequencing genomes at a high speed and at a low cost. We invite scholars and researchers to contribute the original research or synthesis papers that deal with recent advances in the relationship between microbial diversity and soil/aquatic ecosystem functioning.
Prof. Dr. Chien-Sen Liao
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- Microbial diversity
- Soil ecosystems
- Aquatic ecosystems
- Global warming
- Biochar application
- Next generation sequencing
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