The Department of Plant & Microbial Biology is an academic department in the College of Natural Resources at the University of California, Berkeley. The department conducts extensive research, provides undergraduate and graduate programs, and educates students in the fields of plant and microbial sciences with 43 department faculty members.
Daniel Hunt Janzen is an American evolutionary ecologist, and conservationist. He divides his time between his professorship in biology at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is the DiMaura Professor of Conservation Biology, and his research and field work in Costa Rica.
An arbuscular mycorrhiza is a type of mycorrhiza in which the symbiont fungus penetrates the cortical cells of the roots of a vascular plant forming arbuscules.
Metagenomics is the study of genetic material recovered directly from environmental samples. The broad field may also be referred to as environmental genomics, ecogenomics or community genomics.
The soil food web is the community of organisms living all or part of their lives in the soil. It describes a complex living system in the soil and how it interacts with the environment, plants, and animals.
Soil biology is the study of microbial and faunal activity and ecology in soil. Soil life, soil biota, soil fauna, or edaphon is a collective term that encompasses all organisms that spend a significant portion of their life cycle within a soil profile, or at the soil-litter interface. These organisms include earthworms, nematodes, protozoa, fungi, bacteria, different arthropods, as well as some reptiles, and species of burrowing mammals like gophers, moles and prairie dogs. Soil biology plays a vital role in determining many soil characteristics. The decomposition of organic matter by soil organisms has an immense influence on soil fertility, plant growth, soil structure, and carbon storage. As a relatively new science, much remains unknown about soil biology and its effect on soil ecosystems.
Soil ecology is the study of the interactions among soil biology, and between biotic and abiotic aspects of the soil environment. It is particularly concerned with the cycling of nutrients, formation and stabilization of the pore structure, the spread and vitality of pathogens, and the biodiversity of this rich biological community.
Soil respiration refers to the production of carbon dioxide when soil organisms respire. This includes respiration of plant roots, the rhizosphere, microbes and fauna.
Soil health is a state of a soil meeting its range of ecosystem functions as appropriate to its environment. In more colloquial terms, the health of soil arises from favorable interactions of all soil components that belong together, as in microbiota, plants and animals. It is possible that a soil can be healthy in terms of eco-system functioning but not necessarily serve crop production or human nutrition directly, hence the scientific debate on terms and measurements.
Soil biodiversity refers to the relationship of soil to biodiversity and to aspects of the soil that can be managed in relation to biodiversity. Soil biodiversity relates to some catchment management considerations.
The Census of Antarctic Marine Life (CAML) is a field project of the Census of Marine Life that researches the marine biodiversity of Antarctica, how it is affected by climate change, and how this change is altering the ecosystem of the Southern Ocean.
The Environment Institute at the University of Adelaide brings together research groups in fields of science, engineering and economics relating to the management and use of natural resources and infrastructure. Research undertaken within the Institute aims to contribute to improvements in the management of natural resources including water, soil, land and native flora and fauna, particularly under changing climate and economic conditions. It was launched on the eve of World Environment Day, Thursday 4 June 2009.
The Earth Microbiome Project (EMP) is an initiative founded by Janet Jansson, Jack Gilbert and Rob Knight in 2010 to collect natural samples and to analyze the microbial community around the globe.
Agricen is a plant health biotechnology company headquartered in Plano, Texas, United States, that produces microbially derived biochemical products for the agriculture, turf and ornamental plant markets.
Mary K. Firestone is a professor of soil microbiology in the Department of Environmental Studies, Policy, and Management at the University of California, Berkeley and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Her laboratory's research focuses on the ecology of microbes in various soils, and their contribution to the carbon cycle and nitrogen cycle in particular.
The branches of microbiology can be classified into pure and applied sciences. Microbiology can be also classified based on taxonomy, in the cases of bacteriology, mycology, protozoology, and phycology. There is considerable overlap between the specific branches of microbiology with each other and with other disciplines, and certain aspects of these branches can extend beyond the traditional scope of microbiology In general the field of microbiology can be divided in the more fundamental branch and the applied microbiology (biotechnology). In the more fundamental field the organisms are studied as the subject itself on a deeper (theoretical) level. Applied microbiology refers to the fields where the micro-organisms are applied in certain processes such as brewing or fermentation. The organisms itself are often not studied as such, but applied to sustain certain processes.
The Australian Grains Genebank (AGG) is a national center for storing genetic material for plant breeding and research. The Genebank is in a collaboration with the Australian Seed Bank Partnership on an Australian Crop Wild Relatives project. It is located at Grains Innovation Park, in Horsham, Victoria, Australia.
Tracy Teal is an American bioinformatician and the Executive Director of Data Carpentry. She is known for her work in open science and biomedical data science education.
Mercedes Bustamante is a biologist born in Chile. Most of her work takes place in the savannah regions in Brazil called the cerrado biome. Her area of interests are studying large scale impacts on the environment, land usage and biogeochemistry. Since 1994 she has been an Professor at the University of Brasilia (UnB), where she is currently the Graduate Coordinator of the Ecology Department.
Jennifer B. H. Martiny is an American ecologist who is a Professor at the University of California, Irvine. Her research considers microbial diversity in marine and terrestrial ecosystems. In 2020 she was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
