Biocommunication in Soil Microorganisms

Communication among Phages, Bacteria, and Soil Environments, Stephen Abedon.- Soil Bacteria and Bacteriophages, Robert Armon.- Soil phage ecology: Abundance, Distribution, and Interactions with Bacterial Hosts, Kurt E. Williamson.- Identification and Analysis of Prophages and Phage Remnants in Soil Bacteria, K.V. Srividhya and S. Krishnaswamy.- Back to the Soil: Retroviruses and Transposons, Omar Bagasra, D. Gene Pace.- Ubiquitous Bacteriophage Hosts in Rice Paddy Soil, Makoto Kimura*, Guanghua Wang, Susumu Asakawa.- Phage Biopesticides and Soil Bacteria: Multilayered and Complex Interactions, Antonet Svircev, Susan Lehman, Peter Sholberg, Dwayne Roach, Alan Castle.- Interactions between bacteriophage DinoHI and a network of integrated genetic elements which control virulence in Dichelobacter nodosus, the causative agent of ovine footrot, Brian Cheetham, Gabrielle Whittle, Michael Ting, Margaret Katz .- Gene Network Holography of the Soil Bacterium Bacillus subtilis, Dalit Roth, Asaf Madi, Dror Y. Kenett, Eshel Ben-Jacob.- The Core Genome Concept Applied to Soil Bacteria, Margaret Riley.- Plasmids of Rhizobiaceae and their role in interbacterial and transkingdom interactions, Katherine Pappas, Miguel Cevallos.- Quorum sensing and quorum quenching in soil ecosystems, Yves Dessaux, Emilie Chapelle, Denis Faure.- Integration of cell-to-cell signals in soil bacterial communities, Max Teplitski, Massimo Merighi, Mengsheng Gao, Jayne Robinson.- Beneficial rhizobacteria induce plant growth: mapping signaling networks in Arabidopsis, Huiming Zhang, Mina Aziz, Xitao Xie, Mi-Seong Kim, Xin Shen, Paul W. Paré.- Signal and nutrient exchange in the interactions between soil algae and bacteria, Max Teplitski, Sathish Rajami.- Communication among soil bacteria and fungi, Ilona Pfeiffer.- Microbe-microbe, microbe-plant biocommunication, Ralf Oelmüller, Neeraj Shrivastava, Meghna Pohani, Kailash C Upadhayaya, Irena Sherameti, Paul Murugan, Shashibala Singh and AjitVarma.

"The discovery of cellular communication (both inter- and intra-species communication) in the microbial world is one of the most exciting and significant scientific breakthroughs in the last quarter century. "Biocommunication in Soil Microorganisms" provides a in-depth review of many aspects of this topic for microorganisms and their viruses that inhabit the soil ecosystem. The chapters are written by leading experts in the field and provide a thorough treatment of our state-of-knowledge while also stimulating ideas for future investigation. It will be an essential reference for all of those with interest in microbial communication."

Mark Radosevich, Biosystems Engineering and Soil Science, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA

"Historically, we did not think of soil microorganisms as being immersed in an ecology of biocommunication. But we have recently come to appreciate the richness of such communication. And in this exchange of information the viruses (phages) and related genetic agents contribute a major mode of communication. Günther Witzany is to be commended for having compiled a milestone edition that has brought this topic together for the first time."

Luis P. Villarreal, Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, University of California, Irvine, USA