Soil Nitrogen Ecology, 1st ed. 2021
Soil Biology Series, Vol. 62

This book highlights the latest discoveries about the nitrogen cycle in the soil. It introduces the concept of nitrogen fixation and covers important aspects of nitrogen in soil and ecology such as its distribution and occurrence, soil microflora and fauna and their role in N-fixation. The importance of plant growth-promoting microbes for a sustainable agriculture, e.g. arbuscular mycorrhizae in N-fixation, is discussed as well as perspectives of metagenomics, microbe-plant signal transduction in N-ecology and related aspects.

This book enables the reader to bridge the main gaps in knowledge and carefully presents perspectives on the ecology of biotransformations of nitrogen in soil.

Prof. Cristina Cruz is a faculty at Plant Biology,  Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon (Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa - FCUL), Portugal, where she is teaching and carryout research since 1994. She teaches in the Department of Plant Biology (Departamento de Biologia Vegetal - DBV), and carry out research in the Plant-Soil Ecology Group of the Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes (cE3c). She is interested in the physiological mechanisms that determine the suitability of terrestrial plants to their environments, especially in environments rich in ammonium. Prof Cruz is actively engaged in research and has coordinated several research projects funded by National Science Foundation, IMM, European Space Agency, Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation and many more. She has more than 100 research publications in scientific journals and around 40 book chapters with Backhuys Publishers, Oxford and IBH Publishing, Springer, Nova Science Publishers, and European Science Foundation and Springer verlag, Germany. She is also a Consultant to the European Commission as an external expert evaluator of projects and progress reports with significant experience as scientific referee and examiner.

Dr. Kanchan Vishwakarma is currently working as Research Scientist at Amity Institute of Microbial Technology, Amity University Noida. She has completed her MTech and PhD from Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology Allahabad, the Institute of National Importance. Her broad area of interest includes assessment of plant physiology under stress, plant microbe interaction and plant nanoparticle interaction. She is majorly engaged in studying the role of beneficial microbes such as plant growth promoting rhizobacteria and nanoparticle’s interaction to eradicate stress in various crops.. She is recipient of Gold Medal and Merit Certificate for her MTech dissertation in 2015 and a prestigious Tony B Academic A

Provides overview on the soil nitrogen cycle

Introduces the concept of nitrogen fixation

Highlights importance of plant growth-promoting microbes for sustainable agriculture