Editorial: Microscale Modelling of Soil Processes: Recent Advances, Challenges, and the Path Ahead
Name
fenvs-09-818038.pdf
Size
733.35 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
c718d37a5b06499cf945181dc0adfdf2
Author(s)
Pot, Valérie
Gerke, Kirill
Ebrahimi, Ali
Garnier, Patricia
Baveye, Philippe
Date Issued
December 10, 2021
Journal
Frontiers in Environmental Science
Publisher
Frontiers SA
Citation
Pot V, Gerke KM, Ebrahimi A, Garnier P and Baveye PC (2021) Editorial: Microscale Modelling of Soil Processes: Recent Advances, Challenges, and the Path Ahead. Front. Environ. Sci. 9:818038.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Over the last 15 years, increasing numbers of researchers have come to recognize that in order to understand many soil processes, and be able to predict their future evolution, especially under the very unsteady conditions resulting from climate change, the traditional macroscopic approach would not do, and a microscopic perspective needs to be adopted instead (e.g., Smercina et al., 2021). This conclusion has been particularly clear for soil processes involving microorganisms. Several key studies have demonstrated that to better understand what controls the growth and activity of microorganisms, one needed to make observations at their scale, i.e., with a resolution of at most a few microns, and it is anticipated that even much smaller resolutions than that will need to be considered when we shall try to understand what controls the behavior of viruses (e.g., bacteriophages) in soil environments. The progressive shift in emphasis from the macroscale to the microscale over the last few years has been rendered possible by tremendous technological advances, such as the advent of dedicated table-top X-ray computed tomography scanners, and the development of various synchrotron-based techniques (such µXRF or NEXAFS) as well as NanoSIMS. Experimental research in this field has been very active and is currently undergoing a major expansion around the world, in particular in work that combines several different observation techniques (e.g., Schlüter et al., 2019; Lucas et al.; Bandara et al., 2021; Gerke et al., 2021).
Subjects
soil architecture
pore geometry and topology
microbial processes
mathematical modelling
model assessment and verification
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computational and Systems Biology Program
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2021.818038
