Rhizosphere soil microbiomes: As driver of agriculture commodity and industrial application

Abstract

Of late a term microbiome in the study of microbial ecology has helped in establishing a holistic understanding of the role of earth’s microbial community (bacteria, archaea, lower and higher eukaryotes, and viruses). Its genome has revolutionized environmental issues, crop yields, biomanufacturing, and healthcare. Microbiomes in biosphere and humans are a key component in sustaining life amidst the arising challenges of the 21st century such as soil fertility, food insecurity, diseases, and worldwide energy crisis. A better understanding of the resilience of microbiomes could lead to new innovations in the areas of agriculture, energy, health, and environment. But due to lack of advance tools and technology, scientists argue about predictive and actionable understanding of global microbiome processes. Hence a group of microbiologists proposed an interdisciplinary Unified Microbiome Initiative (UMI) to discover and use advance tools to understand and harness the capabilities of earth’s microbial ecosystems. UMI would enable scientists to understand global microbial processes, at function levels, like increasing soil fertility (soil microbiome), enhancing the yield of crops (plant microbiome), geochemical cycling of nutrients (oceanic microbiome), and maintaining the health of an individual (gut microbiome). By focusing on the research striving to find the answers to some of the fundamental questions in microbiome studies like evolution and ecology of microbiomes and challenge and opportunities associated with microbiome-functional diversity in times of global change in context of agro ecology (like nutrient management and development of effective consortia of plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria), industry, and human welfare (bioremediation and phytoremediation of xenobiotic compounds and human and host fitness), microbiomes can be developed as an effective microbial consortia to resolve problems like soil health, food security, climate change, and human health at global level. © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.