Land has a wide variety of uses: agricultural, residential, industrial, and recreational. Microbes play a key role in the terrestrial ecosystem, providing symbiotic relationships with plants. Human use of land has led to the exhaustion of nutrients in soils, contamination of land, and a reduction in biodiversity. Applying our knowledge of microbes will be essential in restoring the biodiversity of affected ecosystems. Greater research into how microbes impact human life on land could all have a positive impact, by increasing crop production, repurposing areas of land and improving microbial biodiversity in soil, land, and water.
A study suggests that dispersal - through air or rain, for example - plays a major role in microbial succession after a destructive fire.
Read storyEngineers have developed nanoparticles, fashioned from plant viruses, that can deliver pesticide molecules to soil depths that were previously unreachable.
Researchers find that warming trends will likely result in major disturbances of networks of fungi, potentially harming forest resilience.
Researchers have discovered that a protein in the mosquito Aedes aegypti , Argonaute 2, has a key role - via several biological mechanisms - in keeping mosquitoes healthy and active despite the presence of viral infections like dengue and Zika.
The Seattle-based biotech company has developed a natural solution to eliminate the microorganisms in the cow gut that produces methane gas, a major cause of global warming.