Functional Diversity of Soil Microbial Communities in Environments Shaped by Anthropogenic Activities
A special issue of Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395). This special issue belongs to the section "Agroecology Innovation: Achieving System Resilience".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 July 2024 | Viewed by 109
Special Issue Editors
Interests: mycorrhiza fungi; arbuscular mycorrhiza; mycorrhizal symbiosis; soil microorganism
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: soil management; adaptable soil tillage; nutrient management; crop production; impacts of climate change
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The current geological epoch, i.e., the Anthropocene, is profoundly affected by the expansion of environments shaped by human activities such as agriculture, industry, urbanization, etc. As a consequence, the human population is facing, on the one hand, the consequences of more than half of the terrestrial ecosystems having turned into anthropogenic ecosystems, and on the other hand, the dependence on services provided by ecosystems of unknown functional mechanisms. Soil microbial communities are undoubtedly key players in vital ecosystem processes such as primary production, decomposition, nutrient cycling, and carbon storage. For a long time, taxonomic richness has been used as an indirect measure of the potential contribution of microbial communities in the functioning of ecosystems. In recent decades, this perspective has been challenged, and the diversity of functions performed by microbial communities has received increasing recognition as the missing link between biodiversity patterns and ecosystem functions.
In this Special Issue of Agronomy, we invite you to submit both original research and review-type contributions regarding the use of available tools (metatranscriptomic approach, enzymatic assay, etc.) for the assessment of changes in the functional diversity of soils under the pressure of any anthropogenic activity.
Dr. Franco Magurno
Dr. Zoltán Kende
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Agronomy is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- soil microbial communities
- functional diversity
- anthropogenic activities
- biodiversity
- ecosystem functions
- ecosystem processes
