Impacts of Climate Change on Microbial Activity in Agricultural Egyptian Soils

Abstract

Egypt’s agriculture sector is highly vulnerable to climate change and its exposed to environmental threats in different faces such as energy, water and food security. Specifically, climate change is possible to change plant species composition, abundance and function of soil community, and plant-microbe interactions that together affect the quality of agricultural soils. For microorganisms inhabiting Egyptian soils, some insight has been exposed to high temperature and accumulating of carbonates and soluble salts in Aridisols (desert soils), and the other inhabiting in alluvial soils (Entisols) in the Nile Delta and the Qattara Depression of the western desert. Egyptian soils have a great diversity of microorganisms such as bacteria, actinobacteria, fungi and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi that play an important role in nutrient cyclings. Unfortunately, the soil is a complex habitat for microbial growth, and the structure and function of microorganisms are tremendously complex in the soil. These complexations lead the difficult to predict the effects of climate change on the activity of Egyptian soil microorganisms. Climate change will have direct and indirect effects on soil microbial activity. Climate changes include increasing temperature, elevated or increasing the concentration of CO2, rise changing soil moisture content, increasing of soil salinity, and drought. These changes led to reversely impacted soil microbial communities that affect biogeochemical cycles of nutrients in agricultural soils. Therefore, understanding of microbial activity in the soil is essential for our ability to evaluate the necessity of biogeochemical cycles-climate feedbacks. Soil microbial activities play an important role in increasing soil fertility and recycling of nutrients within the soil. Activity in soil microorganism and/or enzyme is significant as a sensitive indicator of soil biological quality. These activities are informative to determine changes in soil biochemical properties that are affected by environmental stress from natural phenomena or anthropogenic activities. In this chapter, we review the currently available researches regarding the impact of climate change on soil microbial activity, especially in Egyptian soils. Soil microbial activity includes microbial populations, microbial biomass, enzymes activity, soil beneficial microorganisms and carbon sequestration in Egyptian soil.