Microbiome-Based Decontamination of Environmental Pollutants

Microbiome-Based Decontamination of Environmental Pollutants explores the complex interactions of plant-associated microbiomes, providing insights into the pressing challenges of managing environmental resources such as soil, water, and waste. Analysis has shown a formidable potential based in the network interactions between plant microbiota and environmental contaminants. This book presents insights into the potential exploitation of these plant-associated microbial functions. This volume in the Plant and Soil Microbiome series summarizes microbiological aspects of environmental management from the basics to advanced theoretical as well as practical aspects of microbial-based approaches.

The physical and chemical changes caused by pollution of an ecosystem can occur rapidly, significantly impacting the functionality of ecosystem services in that environment. Environmental contamination poses and increasingly global challenge through direct and indirect adverse impacts on the climate, soil productivity and the health concerns of human beings. Traditional remediation techniques are not consistently feasible in mitigating environmental contaminants challenges in terms of cost-effectiveness, limited land resources and toxic residual products. The use of plant-associated microbes as part of a network of tools opens a new door to explore an alternative, eco-friendly and economical technology to mitigate the challenges of environmental contamination.