About this Research Topic
Today’s challenges associated with land use require an integrated understanding of natural processes and phenomena across scales. Globally, agriculture and forestry practices are expanding and intensifying cycles of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorous, leading to degraded environmental quality: excess agricultural nitrogen is contaminating aquatic ecosystems and public drinking water; soil organic matter losses are diminishing the capacity for soils to hold nutrients and water and resist erosion; and agricultural trace gas emissions are contributing to global climate change.
While these impacts are global, they are strongly influenced by environmental and management drivers at local to regional scales, and ultimately driven by micron-scale microbial processes. The Research Topic Landscape and Ecosystem Microbiology asks the question: How we can integrate knowledge and research in microbiology to better understand human impacts on terrestrial ecosystems across scales?
Central to improving our understanding of ecosystem responses to land use intensification, and more broadly the societal relevance of microbiology beyond medical and food production issues, is to understand how microbial biodiversity, metabolism and physiology interact with their environment to predict landscape, regional and global scale phenomena, including greenhouse gas emissions, crop production or carbon cycling. Articles may focus on themes including: 1) Improving our understanding of how microbial biodiversity patterns in soils, waters, and plants can be scaled up for use in remote sensing and larger scale modelling; 2) assessing how biogeochemical processes can be linked with microbiome dynamics and controlling factors across scales; 3) developing techniques for experimental and remote observations of microbial activities and biodiversity at an ecosystem scale; and 4) scaling and resolving the impact of lateral transport of microorganisms and nutrients (e.g. hydrological or erosive and aerosol transport) on ecosystem processes.
We encourage researchers to provide statistical and modelling approaches to go beyond single point and homogenous plot-limited observations. Original research articles, perspectives, and reviews are welcomed. Contributions that address little investigated aspects or that develop new concepts for research approaches will be highly appreciated. Contributions that address solely aquatic habitats are not the target the Research Topic and should be submitted to appropriate sections of Frontiers in Microbiology.
While these impacts are global, they are strongly influenced by environmental and management drivers at local to regional scales, and ultimately driven by micron-scale microbial processes. The Research Topic Landscape and Ecosystem Microbiology asks the question: How we can integrate knowledge and research in microbiology to better understand human impacts on terrestrial ecosystems across scales?
Central to improving our understanding of ecosystem responses to land use intensification, and more broadly the societal relevance of microbiology beyond medical and food production issues, is to understand how microbial biodiversity, metabolism and physiology interact with their environment to predict landscape, regional and global scale phenomena, including greenhouse gas emissions, crop production or carbon cycling. Articles may focus on themes including: 1) Improving our understanding of how microbial biodiversity patterns in soils, waters, and plants can be scaled up for use in remote sensing and larger scale modelling; 2) assessing how biogeochemical processes can be linked with microbiome dynamics and controlling factors across scales; 3) developing techniques for experimental and remote observations of microbial activities and biodiversity at an ecosystem scale; and 4) scaling and resolving the impact of lateral transport of microorganisms and nutrients (e.g. hydrological or erosive and aerosol transport) on ecosystem processes.
We encourage researchers to provide statistical and modelling approaches to go beyond single point and homogenous plot-limited observations. Original research articles, perspectives, and reviews are welcomed. Contributions that address little investigated aspects or that develop new concepts for research approaches will be highly appreciated. Contributions that address solely aquatic habitats are not the target the Research Topic and should be submitted to appropriate sections of Frontiers in Microbiology.
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
