About this Research Topic
To date, it is becoming increasingly relevant to understand how plants interact with their biotic and abiotic environments. In this context, the rhizosphere can be considered one of Earth's most complex and vital interfaces, a valuable hot spot for a multitude of biotic and abiotic processes. It comprises an integrated network of plant root signals, soil chemical and physical footprints and microbial communities’ functionality that are able to regulate plant productivity and soil ecological function.
Therefore, the root zone can be considered and explored as a meta-organism to deepen our understanding of the interactions occurring at the rhizospheric level and how these can be routinely manipulated to create desirable applications for harnessing diverse and potentially complementary ecosystem services. Today, technological advances can give a strong impulse to expand knowledge on rhizospheric processes, diversity and functionality, providing an increasingly detailed view of the interaction between plants and the environment. However, the implementation of knowledge gained in the field of rhizosphere research is still in its infancy due to a limited view of processes. It requires a multidisciplinary effort and a more complex interpretive perspective to unveil unknown processes of interaction at the belowground level (pairing plant, microbial and soil data). With this Research Topic, we would like to explore how rhizospheric effects shift in disturbed environments and how associated plant-microbe signals change. Moreover, the article collection will investigate to what extent the interacting rhizosphere processes determine plant behavior and fitness as well as nutrient and contaminant fate. This Research Topic will provide new insights into the field of biological interaction in disturbed environments to support more efficient environmental biotechnologies (both for sustainable agriculture and soil restoration).
This Research Topic seeks to cover novel findings and integrate new experimental data across different rhizosphere processes. We welcome original research and review articles that cover the following subtopics:
• Rhizosphere processes including root exudation, microbial transformation and biodiversity.
• Rhizosphere manipulation as a driver for soil function recovery and plant stress response.
• Current advances in experimental methods and modelling of plant signals at the rhizosphere level.
• Current advances in exploring and pairing molecular signals: transcriptomics, metabolomics, genomics, etc.
• Current advances and opinions in complex data management (pairing plant, microbes and abiotic environment data).
Therefore, the root zone can be considered and explored as a meta-organism to deepen our understanding of the interactions occurring at the rhizospheric level and how these can be routinely manipulated to create desirable applications for harnessing diverse and potentially complementary ecosystem services. Today, technological advances can give a strong impulse to expand knowledge on rhizospheric processes, diversity and functionality, providing an increasingly detailed view of the interaction between plants and the environment. However, the implementation of knowledge gained in the field of rhizosphere research is still in its infancy due to a limited view of processes. It requires a multidisciplinary effort and a more complex interpretive perspective to unveil unknown processes of interaction at the belowground level (pairing plant, microbial and soil data). With this Research Topic, we would like to explore how rhizospheric effects shift in disturbed environments and how associated plant-microbe signals change. Moreover, the article collection will investigate to what extent the interacting rhizosphere processes determine plant behavior and fitness as well as nutrient and contaminant fate. This Research Topic will provide new insights into the field of biological interaction in disturbed environments to support more efficient environmental biotechnologies (both for sustainable agriculture and soil restoration).
This Research Topic seeks to cover novel findings and integrate new experimental data across different rhizosphere processes. We welcome original research and review articles that cover the following subtopics:
• Rhizosphere processes including root exudation, microbial transformation and biodiversity.
• Rhizosphere manipulation as a driver for soil function recovery and plant stress response.
• Current advances in experimental methods and modelling of plant signals at the rhizosphere level.
• Current advances in exploring and pairing molecular signals: transcriptomics, metabolomics, genomics, etc.
• Current advances and opinions in complex data management (pairing plant, microbes and abiotic environment data).
Keywords: Rhizosphere interactions, Plant signals, Microorganism signals, Abiotic Environment
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.
