About this Research Topic

Background

The land-water ecotones, such as coastal areas, wetlands, riverine zones, and aquifer recharge areas, serve as important transition zones, fostering intricate biogeochemical processes between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. These environments harbor unique environmental conditions shaped by the close proximity of land and water bodies. Within these ecotones, microorganisms (bacteria, archaea, fungi) play a pivotal role in driving nutrient biogeochemical cycles and removing contaminants. Given the diverse anthropogenic activities, intensive and complex exchanges of mass and energy, comprehending these biogeochemical processes presents a formidable challenge.

One of the significant challenges is due to the complex interactions between microbes and the diverse environments they inhabit. The functionalities of microbial communities interconnect the exchanges of mass and energy among the biosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and anthroposphere in land-water ecotones. For instance, under fluctuating redox conditions, the coupling of iron with carbon cycling was largely affected by mineral-microbe interaction. Electron transfer, mass exchange, and interactions between minerals and microorganisms are most active in redox transition zones in freshwater, estuarine, or marine sediments. Degraded wetlands play a crucial role in regulating greenhouse gas emissions and mediating carbon and nitrogen loss through regulating microbial activity. With the migration of easily mobile organic and inorganic contaminants across ecosystem boundaries due to geogenic and anthropogenic processes, the role of microbial communities in degrading or detoxifying the contaminants and their impacts on ecological health becomes vital for environmental protection. This Research Topic will therefore present advances in understanding the metabolism, distribution, and underlying drivers of microbes and their functions in both pristine and contaminated land-water ecotones, with the aim of improving our understanding of global nutrient biogeochemical cycles, contaminant bioremediation, microbial-environment interaction.

This Research Topic will include research articles, perspectives, and reviews, focusing on but not limited to the following scopes:

-Microbial-driven carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, and metal cycling in nearshore, euphotic zone and sediments of coastal and estuarine ecosystems
- Bioremediation strategies for nitrogen, heavy metal, petroleum hydrocarbon, and emerging contaminants in soil and vadose-groundwater ecosystems
-Mineral-microbe interaction and coevolution through geological time and its environmental significance
-Spatial-temporal patterns of bacterial, archaeal, and fungal community assembly mechanisms and functional potentials at land-water ecotones
-Ecological risk assessment and ecotoxicity of heavy metals in soils, sediments, and water


The Volume I can be checked below:
https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/59854/microbial-involvement-in-biogeochemical-cycling-and-contaminant-transformations-at-land-water-ecotones

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Editorial
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Systematic Review
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Editorial
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Elemental cycling, Microbial community assembly, Bioremediation, Microbe-mineral interaction, land-water ecotones

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