Reinstating soil microbial diversity in agroecosystems: The need of the hour for sustainability and health

Seneviratne, G.; Kulasooriya, S. A.

doi:10.1016/j.agee.2012.10.002

Cited by 58 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…The biofilm initially had two diazotrophs, but seven diazotrophs were isolated from the biofilm treated soil in comparison to the two diazotrophs, each isolated from the nutrient solution and sterilised distilled water added pots. This is attributed to breaking the dormancy of microbial seed bank in the soil from the biofilm exudates (Seneviratne & Kulasooriya, 2013). This leads to an increase in diazotrophic soil bacteria, which Different letters on the columns show significant differences at 5 % probability level, whereas the columns with the same letter are not significantly different at the same probability level.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 93%

Microbial biofilms and mitigation of loss of agro-biodiversity in degraded soils

Herath

Seneviratne

Jayasinghe

et al. 2017

J. Natn. Sci. Foundation Sri Lanka

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Abstract:Modern agriculture has been one of the causes for biodiversity degradation. Conservation of the remaining biodiversity is of utmost importance and novel approaches and concepts should be tested to achieve this end. As a recent development in microbiology, fungal surface-attached bacterial communities or fungal-bacterial biofilms (FBBs) are being studied for various biotechnological applications with consequences in ecosystem functioning and biodiversity. The present study was conducted to investigate the effect of the introduced FBBs on restoration of reduced biodiversity in the soil of a degraded tea land. The soil was treated with a developed biofilm, its monocultures, the nutrient solution used for culturing the microbes, and sterilised distilled water in a pot experiment. After three months, the soils were evaluated for plant and culturable microbial species richness, microfaunal count, nitrogenase activity, and selected soil parameters. It was observed that the biofilm application resulted in a significantly higher plant species richness than the respective monocultures (p < 0.05). Further, culturable bacterial and fungal species richnesses, soil nitrogenase activity, organic carbon, and available ammonium and nitrate increased significantly with the biofilm application, compared with the application of the nutrient solution and distilled water (p < 0.05). Results of the present study indicated that inoculation of the developed microbial biofilms influences microbial and plant diversity and soil quality parameters positively. These observations indicate that the microbial biofilms developed in this study may have the potential to be developed as a novel biotechnological tool to mitigate biodiversity loss in agroecosystems and perhaps in natural ecosystems.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 93%

Microbial biofilms and mitigation of loss of agro-biodiversity in degraded soils

Herath

Seneviratne

Jayasinghe

et al. 2017

J. Natn. Sci. Foundation Sri Lanka

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“…The MB in natural and disturbed ecosystems acts as reservoir of important labile pools of C and mineral nutrients from which the nutrients get liberated following the death of the microorganisms. The application of bio-filmed bio-fertilisers (BFBFs), developed from EM has been shown recently to stimulate restoring degraded tropical agricultural lands within few months, with improved ecosystem functioning and sustainability (Seneviratne and Kulasooriya, 2013). Evidently, the direct introduction of BFBFs communities can be a viable and efficient tool to contribute considerably in enhancement of microbial biodiversity, which leads to agro-ecosystem and environmental sustainability (Seneviratne et al, 2011;Seneviratne, 2012).…”

Section: Origin Of the Problemsmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Land degradation causes the decline of microbial diversity and influences the environmental, social and economic sustainability (Nunes et al, 2012;Araujo et al, 2014). The conventional agricultural practices are deteriorating the soil productivity and environmental quality at alarming rate (Seneviratne and Kulasooriya, 2013). The loss of beneficial soil microbial communities led to a significant decline in soil productivity and ecosystem functioning (Alqarawi et al, 2014).…”

Section: Origin Of the Problemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microbes: The chief ecological engineers in reinstating equilibrium in degraded ecosystems

Singh

2015

Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment

144

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“…Further research and development of novel biofertilizers for the rapid decomposition of organic matter and popularization of their use together with the return to the use of organic fertilizers (as much as possible) is a way forward to minimize water pollution in large scale agriculture in Sri Lanka. In this manner restoration of beneficial microbial communities in soil (Seneviratne and Kulasooriya, 2013) resulting in the retention of added fertilizer and improvement of natural soil fertility could lead to sustainable, environmentally benign crop production.…”

Section: Amelioration Of Cyanobacterial Problemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toxin producing freshwater cyanobacteria of Sri Lanka

Kulasooriya

2017

Ceylon J. Sci.

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Abstract:Cyanobacteria are photosynthetic, prokaryotic microorganisms commonly found among the phytoplankton of stagnant waters. Some of them produce toxins and these have been implicated to contribute to environmental health problems including kidney disease of uncertain etiology. This paper is a review of published literature on freshwater cyanobacteria of Sri Lanka with special emphasis on toxigenic genera. It is evident that the freshwater cyanobacterial populations of Sri Lanka have undergone significant changes from the beginning of the 20 th century until recent times. While toxigenic genera such as Microcystis and Cylindrospermopsis have been observed occasionally during the early 20 th century they have now become dominant in most of our waters except in those whose catchment areas are protected forests devoid of human habitation. Eutrophication through nutrient loading and other sources of pollution by anthropogenic activities triggers off cyanobacterial bloom formation which is an environmental health hazard. Minimizing pollution of lentic water bodies by the reduction of the use of chemical fertilizer and other agro-chemicals, restoration of riparian vegetation, biomanipulation to control cyanobacterial populations and breakdown of cyanotoxins through chemical, physical and microbiological methods have been proposed for the amelioration of this hazard. Extensive research studies on such aspects are warranted to develop solutions to overcome this environmental problem.

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Reinstating soil microbial diversity in agroecosystems: The need of the hour for sustainability and health

Cited by 58 publications

References 20 publications

Microbial biofilms and mitigation of loss of agro-biodiversity in degraded soils

Microbial biofilms and mitigation of loss of agro-biodiversity in degraded soils

Microbes: The chief ecological engineers in reinstating equilibrium in degraded ecosystems

Toxin producing freshwater cyanobacteria of Sri Lanka

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