Rhizosphere: Achievements and Challenges
Described by Hiltner over a century ago (1904), the rhizosphere is defined as the fraction of soil influenced by plant root activities. This dynamic, complex interface where soil, plant roots and microbes interact is a major hotspot of microbial activity, where numerous subtle molecular processes, as well as multiple feedback events take place, Rhizosphere investigations at the microscopic scale have driven spectacular academic advances in the fields of soil sciences or plant-microbe interactions. They bear promises in terms of environmentally-friendly procedures such as bioremediation or ecological engineering. The long recognized role of rhizosphere processes in plant nutrition and health, and more generally in plant adaptation to stress conditions, is now becoming central for designing sustainable management practices of agricultural and forest ecosystems. The rhizosphere, however, must also be considered and investigated at a much larger scale than its own, especially as a location where important steps of both carbon and nitrogen cycles occur, with obvious links with global changes. Major advances in understanding the rhizosphere have been achieved over the last two decades. Combined expertise in plant biology, microbial ecology and soil sciences and design of research strategies including the latest innovative methods in these fields opens exciting prospects for the future.
This book provides a holistic view of the rhizosphere, keeping in mind its unique functioning that implies numerous, strong and complex interactions between plant roots, soil constituents and microorganismsClassic reference books in this domain such as Curl and Truelove (1986) and Lynch (1990) have been written before the development of the molecular biology era and our knowledge of rhizosphere functioning has considerably expanded since thenThe scope of the present book project is broader than the above as it also addresses how small scale processes that occur in the rhizosphere relate to processes at much broader scales such as global biogeochemical cycling of elements for instanceNone of the most recent books on the rhizosphere [Pinton et al. (2001 and 2007); Varma et al. (2004); Mukerji et al. (2006); Cardon and Whitbeck (2007)], although published after the start of the molecular era have been providing a holistic picture of the rhizosphere, each addressing more specifically its links with, respectively, biochemistry, biogeochemistry-global ecology, microbial diversity. In contrast, this book is based on the deliberate choice not to focus on one specific component, in order to provide a holistic picture of the rhizosphereThe ambition of this book is to provide prospective insights and identify potentials for innovative rhizosphere management options for ecological engineering of ecosystems