Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 203 (2015) 8082

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/agee

News & views

Microbes: The chief ecological engineers in reinstating equilibrium in

degraded ecosystems
Jay Shankar Singh *
Department of Environmental Microbiology, Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar (Central) University, Lucknow 226025, Uttar Pradesh, India

A R T I C L E I N F O

A B S T R A C T

Article history:
Received 12 January 2015
Received in revised form 19 January 2015
Accepted 28 January 2015
Available online xxx

The indiscriminate application of synthetic chemicals in agriculture has deteriorated extremely the
quality of environment due to loss of benecial microbial communities. The world now has a real
prospect to grow sustainably and eliminate acute food scarcity in the next generation. Achieving this will
require eco-friendly and safe technology for restoration of degraded lands. Microbes form the vital living
components of soils contributing ecosystem sustainability due to their cosmopolitan survival, massive
efcient genetic pool, catabolic versatility and stress tolerance potential. It has been reported that direct
application of modied microbes enhances the microbial diversity in the agro-ecosystems by breaking
dormancy of inactive soil microbial pool. It is presumed that enhanced diversity of efcient microbial
community compositions in degraded ecosystems establish a functional equilibrium, which help
maintain sustainability. Undoubtedly therefore, microbes may play the role of chief ecological engineers
in resolving the environmental problems as well as the innovative tool to reinstate the degraded
ecosystems.
2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Agriculture
Ecosystems
Environment
Microbes
Restoration ecology

1. Origin of the problems

Human activities, such as land-use changes, induce severe land
degradation with potential impacts on environment (Araujo et al.,
2013). Land degradation causes the decline of microbial diversity and
inuences 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 benecial soil microbial communities led to a signicant decline in
soil productivity and ecosystem functioning (Alqarawi et al., 2014).
The people are spending huge money to restore soil fertility aiming to
improve crop productivity and environmental security (Leifeld,
2012). Agriculture, predominant means of livelihood for farming
communities, is potentially vulnerable to fertile land degradation
due to their poor nancial and technological adaptability. Rational
agriculture development and food security are going to be the major
concerns for the future generations (Singh, 2014). The escalating
demand for agricultural land to meet out the food for growing
population directly accelerates deforestation and reduces signicantly the microbial diversity and ecosystem functioning (Singh

* Tel.: +91 522 2998126.

E-mail address: jayshankar_1@yahoo.co.in (J.S. Singh).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2015.01.026
0167-8809/ 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

et al., 2009; Araujo et al., 2014). With the purpose of recovering

degraded lands in different regions of the world, the people are
spending huge money to restore soil properties aiming to improve
crop productivity and food security. Sustainable land management
approaches such as organic farming, crop rotation and mixed
cropping have been considered as major means for combating
the loss of soil fertility and biodiversity (Phalan et al., 2011).
Nevertheless, there are restrictions to those management practices
owing to regularly increasing worldwide food demand, particularly
in developing countries. Therefore, a multidimensional and more
ecologically viable tool needs to be recognized for sustainable
agriculture and environmental stability.
The soil microbial diversity is one of the crucial factors that may
govern the ecosystem functioning (Kennedy and Smith, 1995).
Changes in land-use patterns considerably impact the diversity of
different microbial community compositions in soils (Chau et al.,
2011). It may be argued that the greater diversity of microbes in
ecosystems could establish a functional equilibrium, which may
facilitate to maintain sustainability (Seneviratne, 2012). However,
limited studies have been conducted to assess the benecial
relationships between microbial diversity, soil and ecosystem
sustainability (Kennedy and Smith, 1995). It is therefore important
to explore the role of unidentied (>99%) microbial diversity and
their processes in relation to management of degraded ecosystems
(Singh, 2010).

J.S. Singh / Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 203 (2015) 8082

2. Anticipated corrective tools

The ultimate goal of sustainable agriculture is to develop
innovative technology that ensures food safety and quality
(Araujo et al., 2014). Efcient microorganisms (EM) are one of
such microbial technologies for agriculture and environmental
stability (Singh et al., 2011b; Upadhayay et al., 2012). The
cyanobacteria (blue green algae or BGA) represent a constantly
renewable biomass source that releases to the environment, the
extracellular polysaccharides (EPS), which get mineralized by the
associated micro-ora, and are benecial in maintaining or
restoring soil fertility (Singh, 2014). These peculiar bio-agents not
only x the atmospheric N2 but also produce some bio-active
compounds which promote the crop growth and attenuate
soil pathogens. A substantial improvement has been achieved
in the eld of microbial technology, where these bio-agents
have established satisfactory results in restoration ecology
(Singh, 2014).
The soil microbial biomass (MB) acts as an index of soil fertility
and contributes as one of the major sources of available plant
nutrients in various nutrient deprived forest and agro-ecosystems
(Singh et al., 1989, 2009, 2010). The land-use changes strongly
affect the MB and consequently disturb the ecosystem functioning (Pabst et al., 2013; Singh and Singh, 2013). 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-lmed 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 efcient tool to contribute
considerably in enhancement of microbial biodiversity, which
leads to agro-ecosystem and environmental sustainability
(Seneviratne et al., 2011; Seneviratne, 2012). Plant
growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPRs) have the potential to
accumulate salts and therefore, the ameliorative effects of
microbes on soil fertility improvement under saline conditions
have been shown on various plant species. The enhancement in
soil PGPR diversity may bring several direct and indirect
mechanisms for soil functioning and increased plant stress
tolerance due to synthesis of many bio-active compounds
(Egamberdieva et al., 2013). Seed-priming or seed treatment
with PGPRs and BFBFs may serve as an important means of
managing many soil and seed born diseases as well as enhancing
nutrient use efciency (Singh et al., 2013). The direct application
of potential PGPR and arbascular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) and
their symbiotic interactions with crop plants may be considered
as a new and emerging tool for restoration of degraded lands.
Therefore, the diversity of the above described microbes in
soils may be a key factor in restoration and reinstating the
deforested/degraded ecosystems performance.
It is apparent from the above reports that microbial
biodiversity is one of the precious bio-resources which can
restore degraded lands. However, the approaches adopted in
almost all previous experiments were the application of
single bacterial strains that may partially account for the
reported inconsistencies in the eld, since application of a single
microbial agent is not likely to be active and survive in all soil
environments. On the applied side, given the history of failures or
variability of previous microbial releases, it is interesting to
test the concept of application of mixtures of ecologically
diverse microbial strains with similar functions instead of
limited function of single strains. Mixed inoculations of EM can
create synergistic interactions that may signicantly restore

81

the soil productivity of degraded lands. However, the

experimental evidences are lacking for these arguments in the
eld conditions. A combination of microbiological and ecological
knowledge, biochemical mechanisms and eld engineering
designs would be an essential element for successful restoration
of disturbed ecosystem services using microbes. Critical research
questions pertaining to the development and implementation
of modied microbial communities for enhanced ecological
restoration have been identied and poised for possible future
research (Singh et al., 2011a). Therefore, exploring the unknown
environmental microbial community structure and diversity in
restoration and functioning of degraded ecosystems is of
absolute importance.
In conclusion, microbial diversity could be the prime
factor without which the materialization of different goals of
sustainable development is not possible. The enhancement in
diversity of EM due to direct application of benecial microbes
and their interactions successfully helps in recovery of disturbed
ecosystems within short duration. Biological aspect of soil
functioning, which is a key feature of sustainable productivity,
has not been fully explored because of complex microbial
biodiversity in soil ecosystem. Further exploration and
exploitation of unidentied environmental microbes is
anticipated to increase the possibility of their benecial role in
environmental sustainability.
Acknowledgement
The author thanks Professor S.P. Singh (Department of Botany,
Banaras Hindu University, India) for his suggestion and language
assistance with the manuscript.
References
Alqarawi, A.A., Abd Allah, E.F., Hashem, A., 2014. Alleviation of salt-induced adverse
impact via mycorrhizal fungi in Ephedra aphylla Forssk. J. Plant Interact. 9 (1),
802810.
Araujo, A.S.F., Cesarz, S., Leite, L.F.C., Borges, C.D., Tsai, S.M., Eisenhauer, N., 2013. Soil
microbial properties and temporal stability in degraded and restored lands of
Northeast Brazil. Soil Biol. Biochem. 66, 175181.
Araujo, A.S.F., Borges, C.D., Tsai, S.M., Cesarz, S., Eisenhauer, N., 2014. Soil bacterial
diversity in degraded and restored lands of Northeast Brazil. Antonie Van
Leeuwenhoek 106, 891899.
Chau, J.F., Bagtzoglou, A.C., Willig, M.R., 2011. The effect of soil texture on
richness and diversity of bacterial communities. Environ. Forensics 12,
333341.
Egamberdieva, D., Berg, G., Lindstrom, K., Rasanen, L.A., 2013. Alleviation of salt
stress of symbiotic Galega ofcinalis L: (goats rue) by co-inoculation of
rhizobium with root colonising Pseudomonas. Plant Soil 369 (1), 453465.
Kennedy, A.C., Smith, K.L., 1995. Soil microbial diversity and the sustainability of
agricultural soils. Plant Soil 170, 7586.
Leifeld, J., 2012. How sustainable is organic farming? Agric. Ecosyst. Environ. 150,
121122.
Nunes, J.S., Araujo, A.S.F., Nunes, L.A.P.L., Lima, L.M., Carneiro, R.F.V., Tsai, S.M.,
Salviano, A.A.C., 2012. Land degradation on soil microbial biomass and activity
in Northeast Brazil. Pedosphere 22, 8895.
Pabst, H., Kuhnel, A., Kuzyakov, Y., 2013. Effect of land-use and elevation on
microbial biomass and water extractable carbon in soils of Mt. Kilimanjaro
ecosystems. Appl. Soil Ecol. 67, 1019.
Phalan, B., Onial, M., Balmford, A., Green, R.E., 2011. Reconciling food production and
biodiversity conservation: land sharing and land sparing compared. Science
333, 12891291.
Seneviratne, G., 2012. Are we wrong in conventional approach of biocontrol? Curr.
Sci. 103, 13871388.
Seneviratne, G., Kulasooriya, S.A., 2013. Reinstating soil microbial diversity in
agroecosystems: the need of the hour for sustainability and health. Agric.
Ecosyst. Environ. 164, 181182.
Seneviratne, G., Jayasekara, A.P.D.A., De Silva, M.S.D.L., Abeysekera, U.P., 2011.
Developed microbial biolms can restore deteriorated conventional
agricultural soils. Soil Biol. Biochem. 43, 10591062.
Singh, B.K., 2010. Exploring microbial diversity for biotechnology: the way forward.
Trends Biotechnol. 28 (3), 111116.
Singh, J.S., 2014. Cyanobacteria: a vital bio-agent in eco-restoration of degraded
lands and sustainable agriculture. Climate Change Environ. Sustain. 2 (2),
133137.

82

J.S. Singh / Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 203 (2015) 8082

Singh, J.S., Singh, D.P., 2013. Impact of anthropogenic disturbances on

methanotrophs abundance in dry tropical forest ecosystems, India. Expert Opin.
Environ. Biol. 2, 13.
Singh, J.S., Raghubanshi, A.S., Singh, R.S., Srivastava, S.C., 1989. Microbial biomass
acts as a source of plant nutrients in dry tropical forest and savanna. Nature 338
(6215), 499500.
Singh, J.S., Kashyap, A.K., Singh, D.P., 2009. A comparative account of the microbial
biomass-N and N-mineralization of soils under natural forest, grassland and
crop eld from dry tropical region, India. Plant Soil Environ. 55 (6), 223230.
Singh, J.S., Pandey, V.C., Singh, D.P., Singh, R.P., 2010. Inuence of pyrite and farmyard
manure on population dynamics of soil methanotroph and rice yield in saline
rain-fed paddy eld. Agric. Ecosyst. Environ. 139, 7479.

Singh, J.S., Abhilash, P.C., Singh, H.B., Singh, R.P., Singh, D.P., 2011a. Genetically
engineered bacteria: an emerging tool for environmental remediation and
future research perspectives. Gene 480, 19.
Singh, J.S., Pandey, V.C., Singh, D.P., 2011b. Efcient soil microorganisms: a new
dimension for sustainable agriculture and environmental development. Agric.
Ecosyst. Environ. 140 (34), 339353.
Singh, S.P., Singh, H.B., Singh, D.K., 2013. Trichoderma harzianum and Pseudomonas
sp. mediated management of Sclerotium rolfsii rot in tomato (Lycopersicon
esculentum mill.). Bioscan 8 (3), 801804.
Upadhayay, S.K., Singh, J.S., Saxena, A.K., Singh, D.P., 2012. Impact of PGPR
inoculation on growth and antioxidant status of wheat under saline conditions.
Plant Biol. 14, 605611.