Abstract
Increasing industrial and anthropogenic activities have caused environmental pollution and have raised the concentrations of toxic metals in agricultural soils. Beneficial interactions between plants and rhizosphere microorganisms have been demonstrated to alleviate metal toxicity and nutrient deficiency. In fact, inoculation with heavy metal-resistant, rhizosphere bacteria isolated from metal-polluted soils have been shown to substantially improve plant growth and development under conditions of toxic metal pollution. This effect is even more evident if metal-resistant bacteria are co-inoculated with indigenous arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal strains. Thus, we need a better understanding of the interactions between beneficial microbes such as AM fungi and heavy metal-resistant rhizobacteria. This chapter summarizes the mechanisms involved in bioremediation of heavy metal-contaminated soils by studies involving co-inoculation of plants with autochthonous Brevibacillus and AM fungal strains isolated from heavy metal-polluted soils. The chapter also describes protocols for key methods in the study of such mechanisms.
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Ruiz-Lozano, J.M., Azcón, R. (2011). Brevibacillus, Arbuscular Mycorrhizae and Remediation of Metal Toxicity in Agricultural Soils. In: Logan, N., Vos, P. (eds) Endospore-forming Soil Bacteria. Soil Biology, vol 27. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-19577-8_12
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