Rhizospheric Microbial Community: Ecology, Methods, and Functions

Abstract

Soil is a primary natural resource that maintains ecosystem functioning, water balance, and supports plant growth. Soil is also a habitat for diverse microflora that is very crucial to soil sustaining activities. Microbial ecology is the study of microbial community dynamics and its functioning in the environmental system. Diversity in any ecological niche is the major descriptor for community structure which decides the dynamics and functioning of a community. Conventionally, microbiome characterization is based on culture-dependent techniques, but due to the insufficiency of appropriate culture media most of the microorganisms are unable to grow; therefore, for microbial community analysis culture-dependent techniques have proven less appropriate. However, over the last few decades, culture-independent techniques are being practiced to assess microbial communities and these approaches appear more satisfactory because they are more advanced and able to determine almost all genomes acclimatized in a variety of environmental samples. Moreover, microbes present in ecological niche participate in the development and maintenance of multiple functioning of ecosystems which include pedosphere development, litter decomposition, nutrient cycling, climate regulation, plant growth promotion, and sustainability maintenance. Therefore, in the present era, the characterization of microbiome is very important. This review provides a wider understanding of the functioning of microbial communities and methods of their assessment in the soil.