From the Back Cover
This book addresses a very important aspect of microbial ecology that has direct relevance to crop productivity. The soil zone under the direct influence of roots, or rhizosphere, is known for very intense microbial activities that include interactions with plants and other organisms. Many a times, these interactions are very specific and dictated by exchange of signaling molecules, broadly known as the cross-talk. This book covers our recent understanding of the mechanisms of plant-microbe cross-talk in the rhizosphere. In addition, it delves into the subject of how such interactions can influence plant health.
The book opens with an overview of plants' interaction with, and indeed influence on, their microbiome. Both beneficial and disease-causing microbes inhabit the soil. Wilt-causing fungi are discussed here as an example of soilborne disease as well as insights on sustainable ways to control it. There are chapters related to beneficial rhizosphere residents like Trichoderma, pseudomonads and mycorrhizae, many of which are commercially used in agriculture, and also a specialized chapter on how to effectively deliver such plant-beneficial microbes through seed coating. The book concludes with a chapter on fungal effector proteins, some of which can be used to modulate plant defense against pests and pathogens.
Prof. Benjamin A. Horwitz did his PhD studies in fungal genetics at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, on blue light photoreception in the soil fungus Trichoderma. He has been a member of the Faculty of Biology at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology since 1987, leading a lab studying the molecular genetics of fungal-plant interactions. He has contributed to fungal genome projects, annotating genes for the pathways that fungal cells use to process signals. The Horwitz lab has learned how conserved eukaryotic signaling pathways of fungi contribute to gene expression, development, stress responses, beneficial interactions with plants, and plant disease, communicated in research papers over the years. Prof. Horwitz has edited two books, on Trichoderma and Soil Biology, and served on the editorial boards of Microbiology, Eukaryotic Cell and Phytoparasitica.
Prof. Prasun K. Mukherjee heads the Environmental Microbiology Section of Nuclear Agriculture and Biotechnology Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, India. He has been active in research on biological control of plant diseases using the antagonistic fungi Trichoderma species. He has published several research papers and reviews in high standard journals like Genome Biology, AEM, JBC, Nature Rev Microbiology, Annual Rev Phytopathology, Environmental Microbiology, Fungal Biology Reviews, etc. and his papers are very well-cited. He is an elected fellow of two national Science Academies and is a recipient of several International and National awards, like Fulbright Scholarship, Homi Bhabha Science and Technology Award, VASVIK Award etc. He has been a visiting scientist at the Texas A& M University and The Technion- Israel Institute of Technology on several occasions. He is currently an Editor for Fungal Genetics and Biology, 3Biotech and Heliyon.
