Fungi play important roles as decomposers, plant symbionts and pathogens in soils. The structure of fungal communities in the rhizosphere is the result of complex interactions among selection factors that may favour beneficial or detrimental relationships. Using culture-independent fungal community profiling, we have investigated the effects of nitrogen fertilizer dosage on fungal communities i...

This report has been put together for the Interreg IVB project: Biochar: climate saving soils The objectives for this report were: Objective 4.2.1: Systems to screen biochar–plant interactions-The effect of biochar on root architecture and the localisation of soil mineral nitrogen in the rhizosphere, characterized using mesocosms. Objective 4.2.2: Testing the simulation of physical ageing of bi...

The bacterial communities of 1- to 6-year ginseng rhizosphere soils were characterized by culture-independent approaches, random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD), and amplified ribosomal DNA restriction analysis (ARDRA). Culture-dependent method (Biolog) was used to investigate the metabolic function variance of microbe living in rhizosphere soil. Results showed that significant genetic and met...

Plants and microbes interact in various relationships which have both adverse and beneficial effects on plant growth and microbial communities. Many processes of these interactions occur at or near the root–soil interface, which is known as the rhizosphere. The rhizosphere is defined as the soil region under the immediate influence of plant roots. Many studies suggest that the microbial communi...

Soil microbes play a fundamental role in forest ecosystems and respond rapidly to changes in the environment. Simultaneously with the temperature increase the climate change scenarios also predict an intensified hydrological cycle for the Baltic Sea runoff region. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of elevated air humidity on the top soil microbial community structure of a silver bi...

Soil nutrients and microbial communities are the two key factors in revegetation of barren environments. Ecological stoichiometry plays an important role in ecosystem function and limitation, but the relationships between above- and belowground stoichiometry and the bacterial communities in a typical karst region are poorly understood. We used pepino (Solanum muricatum) to examine the stoichiom...

Changes in microbial communities associated with nematode control were studied by comparing population numbers of fungi and bacteria in the soil and in internal root tissues (endorhiza) in non-amended and chitin-amended soils. Addition of chitin to soil at 1% (w/w) eliminated plant-parasitic nematodes in a first planting of cotton cv. ‘Rowden’ and significantly reduced Meloidogyne incognita inf...

The rhizosphere is a densely populated area in which plant roots must compete with invading root systems of neighboring plants for space, water, and mineral nutrients, and with other soil-borne organisms, including bacteria and fungi. Root-root and root-microbe communications are continuous occurrences in this biologically active soil zone. How do roots manage to simultaneously communicate with...

layer sites of high charge phyllosilicates such as micas is not readily exchanged by other cations and is usually Physical and chemical weathering processes in the rhizosphere may considered ‘fixed’ (Comans et al., 1991). lead to the generation of a greater density of Cs-selective frayed edge sites (FES) on rhizosphere soil as compared with bulk soil. This study The strongest association betwee...

Soil is the sink and source of heavy metals (both geogenic and anthropogenic) and plants are the ecosystem regulators, balancing the chemistry of life on earth. However, roots are the only connection between soil and plants, which are the real engineers of ecosystem dynamics responsible for environmental balance and stability. The plant-soil interface termed as ‘rhizosphere’ is a typical zone o...