Soil Volatile Organic Compounds as Tracers for Microbial Activities in Soils
Heribert Insam
from: Omics in Soil Science (Edited by: Paolo Nannipieri, Giacomo Pietramellara and Giancarlo Renella). Caister Academic Press, U.K. (2014)
Abstract
Soil volatilomics is a scientific discipline that deals with the multitude of volatile organic compounds produced, stored or degraded in soils. These compounds may be of plant or microbial origin, or they may enter or leave the atmosphere through diffusion and convection processes. The present article focuses on soil volatile organic compounds of which many are produced by microorganisms. The challenges and chances of using such VOCs for characterizing soil microbial communities are addressed, and several examples on microbe-to microbe and microbe-plant interactions involving VOCs are given. Also, some problems concerning the measurement of these VOCs are addressed read more ...
