Harnessing the Potential of Microbes for Rejuvenating Soils from Mining Sites: An Initiative for Environmental Balance and Value Addition

AbstractSoil is a natural resource over which whole biomass thrives. It is an essential element of the human civilization since soils ensure food safety. It takes hundreds of thousand years for the natural agencies to create soils useful for cultivation. However, the anthropogenic activities such as mining have resulted in abusing such an important natural resource. The contaminated soils not only damage the green cover, but also provides pathways for movement of toxic elements generated at the mining sites. The quality of soil structure, organic matter, and micronutrients are significantly affected in the soils of active mines (often preserved in mining dumps), abandoned mines, and proximal areas. Microbial communities of soil are the key aspect in reclamation, as they play a main part in nutrient cycling, revegetation, geochemical revolutions, and soil development. The microbial diversity in mine sites consists of several species, mainly fall under the Proteobacteria, Acidobacteria, Firmicutes, and Bacteroidetes. The microbial symbionts like bacteria colonize in root and ectomycorrhizal fungi associated with local vegetation in the mine sites are extremophiles and shows very high activity. This chapter deals with the significance of different organisms which enhance soil fitness and the restoration of abandoned mines as well as in this chapter it also deals that how microbial activity and diversity can be deployed for soil rehabilitation. Other highlights include plant−microbiome interactions in plant establishment at the mine-sites and decoding the molecular mechanism of adaptation and resistance of rhizosphere and non-rhizosphere microbes at the mine site while they are involving in remediation process. At the end this chapter deals with the role of advance molecular techniques and genetically engineered organism in remediation of mining sites. Use of microbes for restoring the soil fertility provides a great value addition to the existing natural resource.KeywordsPhytoremediationMiningRhizosphere microbesSoilRemediation