Molecular Genomic Techniques for Identification of Soil Microbial Community Structure and Dynamics

Abstract

Soil microorganisms play a crucial role in maintaining major biogeochemical/nutrient cycle, soil quality, and productivity. Hence, the understanding of soil microbial community structure, distribution, and their metabolic function is essential for getting a deeper insight into soil ecosystem and its health. A number of molecular methods for extracting metagenome, total RNA, protein, and metabolites from the diverse environmental samples, sequencing technology, etc. are present which help to know about microbial structure, composition, and their metabolic function in the specific environmental ecosystem. Genetic fingerprinting like ARDRA, RFLP, DGGE, and T-RFLP and omics approaches like metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, and metabolomics are essential techniques for identifying and depicting the total microbial community structure and their interactions with environmental and biotic factors. So for these molecular techniques, it is possible to identify and functionally characterize soil microbes that are not culturable in a laboratory environment. This chapter describes old and modern novel state of the art molecular techniques which proved insights into the phylogenetic and functional activities of microbial assemblages in a terrestrial ecosystem.