Purushothaman Chirakkuzhyil Abhilash – författare

This book explores the significance of soil microbial diversity to understand its utility in soil functions, ecosystem services, environmental sustainability, and achieving the sustainable development goals. With a focus on agriculture and environment, the book highlights the importance of the microbial world by providing state-of-the-art technologies for examining the structural and functional attributes of soil microbial diversity for applications in healthcare, industrial biotechnology, and bioremediation studies. In seven chapters, the book will act as a primer for students, environmental biotechnologists, microbial ecologists, plant scientists, and agricultural microbiologists. 

Terrestrial plant systems are an integral part of Earth’s land resources. Resources are mutually connected via the nutrient exchange phenomena. Thus, plant nutrition is crucial in managing soil fertility and land productivity. Soil organic carbon is one of the critical indicators for assessing the viability of land, and hence soil carbon sequestration, which is a burgeoning issue regarding changing climatic conditions. 

In this context, this book provides an essential linkage between sustainable plant nutrition and soil carbon sequestration and their management strategies that lead to multidimensional benefits for environmental sustainability. The primary purpose of this book is to explore the nexus between carbon sequestration and plant growth, its role in maintaining ecosystem services, and modeling aspects of soil carbon and nutrient dynamics. Moreover, it aims to address the growing challenges of ecological perturbations, unraveling the potential of degraded lands for food, fuel, and nutritional security, and accounting for meeting various UN SDGs.