Rhizosphere Microbiology: Toward a Clean and Healthy Soil Environment

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Background

The significance of the soil and the important role it plays is conclusive. It is a living entity that needs to be enriched through sustainable approaches to help support the various activities that the human population depend upon it for. However, the burgeoning human population has led to increased food production demand despite a reduction in global croplands, and consequently posing a risk to food security. Also, the role of bioagents (such as rhizosphere microbes) is understated as the current focus has been on integrated nutrient management input in arable agriculture. Rhizospheric microorganisms have a huge impact as they carry out dual-purpose functions on plant-growth promotion and soil remediation. Plants secrete and utilize root exudates, the main driving force in regulating microbial diversity and activity of rhizospheric microbes on/ around plant roots. Therefore, this research topic will reveal key research directions that clarify the roles of these bioagents in contributing to future food security and environmental sustainability in polluted arable soils.

Given the blooming innovations and body of literature in this research field, we are pleased to announce the launch of “Rhizosphere Microbiology: Toward a Clean and Healthy Soil Environment.”
Soil is a crucial matrix that acts as a platform for man’s various activities; however, it is also a repository for organic pollutants. This has been instigated by the ever-increasing human population straining food production in increasingly contaminated agricultural soils to meet the global food demand. As a living entity, this medium needs to be restored in a sustainable way to achieve this need.
This matrix has been documented to harbor various rhizospheric microorganisms that produce valuable biomolecules like biosurfactants important to plants. Conversely, plants produce and secrete root exudates that stimulate the selection and regulation of these bioagents that ensure their diversity and activity on/around plant roots.
This Research Topic aims to uncover the novel OMICs and high-throughput molecular approaches that either characterize novel rhizospheric bioresources and biomolecules or unravel their mechanisms of action in processes such as colonization, biofilm formation, rhizodeposit production, and biomolecule generation. These innovative approaches in rhizospheric microbiology will help alleviate food safety and environmental sustainability concerns in polluted arable soils.

This Research Topic aims to publish Original Research, Reviews, and Perspectives on the developing research elucidating the importance and roles of plants and their associated rhizospheric microorganisms in the context of simultaneous plant growth and soil remediation of cropland soils. The collection of articles will include, but not limited to, the following topics:
- Progresses in revealing novel bioresources (plant, bacterial and fungal species, along with their genetic information, enzymes, and secondary metabolites) that produce/secrete/utilize rhizodeposits (e.g., root exudates, border cells, mucilage) and biomolecules (such as biosurfactants), to safeguard the soil environment.
- Unraveling unique underlying mechanisms of plant growth and rhizosphere microorganism metabolism during soil remediation of organic pollutants, i.e., colonization, biofilm formation, rhizodeposit production, and biomolecule generation processes.
- Advances in the exploitation of various techniques (chromatography, OMICs, microscopy, etc.) to identify and characterize new bioresources and biomolecules taking part in both functions.

Keywords: Rhizosphere, Microbiology, Soil environment, Root exudates, Pollutant, Fertility

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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