Did you know that one out of every five breaths you take each day comes from “Diatoms," a truly fascinating organism found in nature. These single-celled algae can produce up to twenty percent of the oxygen on the planet. Algae with a single cell make up the biggest category of creatures on Earth, the diatoms. Diatoms are thought to have up to 2 million different species, and more are being found every year, according to scientists.

The diatom, one of nature's silicon marvels, has recently amazed the scientific community with its exquisite patterns and long-lasting resilience. Most diatoms can live alone or in colonies that resemble zigzags, stars, or long chains.

Do you know diatoms are glass house owners? Wow! Yes, they are. Diatoms practically live in glass houses, comprised of silica or silicon dioxide, the same material that makes up sand and glass, which makes sex, development, and buoyancy challenging for them. The tiny, elaborate diatom shells have a variety of shapes, including crowns, snowflakes, stars, cylinders, chandeliers, and pillboxes.

Diatoms drive the recycling of silica, which makes up a quarter of the earth's crust, by producing enzymes that pull dissolved silica out of water. With this distinguishing feature of diatom anatomy of which they are surrounded by a silica (hydrated silicon dioxide) cell wall known as a frustule, and of their photonic nanostructure, these frustules have structural coloration, while earning them the nicknames “jewels of the sea" and “living opals."

Another particularly intriguing feature of diatoms is their ability to transition from saltwater to freshwater and back again. Diatoms have benefited from moving from one habitat to another in terms of diversification. Their silica bio-shells have piqued the interest of nanotechnologists, who are hoping that diatoms may make it easier to customize tiny structures that are beyond the scope of material science. Additionally, because the shape of the frustule varies from species to species, there is a huge diversity in the dimensions of diatoms. This allows for the selection of a specific species of diatom to be tailored to a precise requirement, opening the door to the creation of desired three-dimensional nano composites.

Have you ever heard of Diatomaceous Earth (DE)? Well, even after death, they serve as DE, which is a filtration-capable heterogeneous mixture of fossilized diatom residue. Many diatoms die and sink to the bottom of rivers, lakes, and oceans. Sea floors in some areas can be covered by a layer as deep as 984 feet (300 meters). These layers of dead diatoms fossilize over time and become rich deposits.

Diatoms are easily obtained from the environment, and as they can be transported in small numbers and can grow to a desired confluence from scratch without the use of expensive media or equipment, they are a superb, cost-effective industrial raw resource. Therefore, diatoms are used in numerous scientific fields, including biotechnology, nanotechnology, environmental research, biophysics, and biochemistry, etc.
Diatoms are critical, and almost everything we're learning about them is always brand-new and exciting.
You're probably so fascinated by diatoms that you'd like to meet one by now, right? Diatoms are extremely common protists that live in oceans, lakes, ponds, streams, and damp soil and you don't have to look far to find one. What's that slimy brown scum on submerged sticks and rocks?
Yes! Diatoms!

References
Mishra M, Arukha AP, Bashir T, Yadav D and Prasad GBKS (2017) All New Faces of Diatoms: Potential Source of Nanomaterials and Beyond. Front. Microbiol. 8:1239.

Image courtesy
Featured image – https://medium.com/predict/the-beautiful-microscopic-world-of-diatoms-e64467c698d3
Figure 1 – https://medium.com/predict/the-beautiful-microscopic-world-of-diatoms-e64467c698d3
Figure 2 – https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/making-microscopic-stained-glass-from-algae
Figure 3 – https://www.labroots.com/trending/microbiology/3886/diatoms-they-re-everywhere

Fertilizers are needed to increase the productivity of pastures or meadows. But as humans aren’t ‘statin deficient’ when they have a heart attack, grasslands aren’t ‘fertilizer deficient’ if their performance is poor.
All soils in the world have the potential to grow plants because of the minerals they contain. Minerals come from rocks that are weathered into soluble forms. These minerals are absorbed directly by plants through their roots and are recycled back into soil during the decay process. This is the ‘soluble pool’ that shows up in a soil analysis test. But how do we access the limitless ‘total pool’ available in the crystalline structures of the rock that can provide the full range of the forty-two essential nutrients that plants need to be healthy and disease resistant?

This is where the underground army is required. Every spoonful of healthy soil contains a billion or more microorganisms. In healthy grasslands, there is approximately the same weight in earthworm biomass as the weight of the cattle grazing above ground, not to mention the thousands of other tiny critters all shredding, digesting, dissolving, and excreting to gradually improve the soils.
But to understand this vital process, we should start – as the earth did – with bare rock and some bacteria, fungi, and algae. These microorganisms use enzymes and acids to break down the rock and access the nutrients. With no soil in which to reside, the bacteria, fungi and algae form symbiotic relationships to create a plant-like species called lichens. These communities can then offer a home to mosses and lower ‘successional’ species. Gradually the cycle of growth, death and decay builds enough soil for whole plant communities to thrive.
The more complex the plant community, the better the overall access to the minerals in the soil will be. Different species have different root depths, soil preferences and water tolerance. The plant will grow deep roots if the foliage can develop mature leaf; this will help it access a higher concentration and wider range of the soluble nutrients. Minerals tend to leach downwards as rain passes through the soil layers; deep roots help transport minerals back upwards.
Dead plants, excretions from grazing animals and other organic matter pass some of these recycled minerals in a plant-available form back into the top layers of the soil again. But the real potential to make free fertilizer forever is in the so-called ‘microbial bridge.

References
S. A. Kulasooriya, W. K. Hirimburegama, S. W. Abeysekera, Azolla as a bio fertilizer for rice in Sri Lanka
Matton, D. P., Nass, N., Clarke, A. E., & Newbigin, E. (1994). Self-incompatibility: How plants avoid illegitimate offspring. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 91(6), 1992–1997. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.91.6.1992

Image Curtesy
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/06/healthy-soil-microbes-healthy-people/276710/
https://revitalization.org/article/series-of-free-online-videos-teaches-regenerative-agriculture-practitioners-the-science-of-rebuilding-soil-health

Figure 1: Proposed technical flow for artificial construction of a synthetic microbial community

Throughout the past few decades, the world has changed in a myriad of ways. Although the Green revolution was able to solve many problems that existed such as poverty and hunger, a lot of negative impacts to the environment and humans were caused in massive amounts. In the current world, the biggest problem we face is the growing population and having not enough land for the future living and growing food crops. It is estimated that the human population will nearly be 9.7 billion by the year 2050.
Therefore, search for novel approaches to fulfill human requirements without harming Mother Nature is of utmost importance. One novel trend used by the present scientific world is the use of different connections between microbes and plants for agricultural systems.
Different techniques that are used to enhance the sustainability of agro ecosystems will be discussed in this article.
There are several multi-omics approaches used to reveal the composition of the microbes, microbial networks in which they are present, and their functions.
One such approach is the iTAG sequencing studies which are known as high-throughput sequencing using marker gene tags such as 16s rRNA for bacteria and 18srRNA for fungus. They are used for taxonomical findings via use of nifh, amoA as the functional genes. By using these iTAG sequencing, crop-based research were done for crops such as rice, millet, corn, barley, soybeans, and many more, which proved that there were microorganisms living in those plants.
Since these iTAG-based studies supply limited information, approaches such as shotgun sequencing is more applicable due to the supply of more information about the total DNA content while identifying related genomic features of colonization with plants and their interactions with the microorganism.
Meta-transcriptomics, meta-proteomics, and metabolomics are the other techniques that reveal huge, myriad of important information about the microbiota, including kingdom-level active microbes in the rhizosphere, molecular phenotypes of the rhizosphere microbes, and diagnosis of different plant diseases. These studies lead to the production of biosensors of drought stress by using these microbial communities.
For commercial inventions, bacteria culturing is of paramount importance. Culturomics has come to the stage now, and to enhance that procedure, micro droplet and microfluidics technologies can be used.
Bioinformatics tools have revealed another important microbial network and it is called hub microbes. They play an important role in the plant-microbe interaction and support the network structure.
The above methods give us extremely important information about microorganisms. They assist in designing different techniques to combine those microorganisms to enhance the sustainability of agro ecosystems. As an example, to increase plant performance, host beneficial traits can be assembled with a microbial community and it is known as host-mediated microbiome engineering. Some soil bacteria have the ability to develop resistance against above-ground herbivorous insects for their plants which can also be used as a pest control method. Biocontrol agents and different formulations too are popular approaches across the globe. There should be a clear conscious idea about the microbial potential for enhancing the productivity of the targeted field and the environment.
The above technologies lead to a strong trajectory to enhance the productivity of the crops, fields and ultimately to give rise to a sustainable agro ecosystem.

Reference:
Trivedi, P., Mattupalli, C., Eversole, K. and Leach, J.E. (2021), Enabling sustainable agriculture through understanding and enhancement of microbiomes. New Phytol, 230: 2129-2147. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.17319

Microbial biofilms are the colonies of microorganisms on living or biotic or abiotic surfaces enclosed in a matrix of extracellular polymeric substances produced by the microbial cells themselves. Microbes form biofilms to overcome stresses such as nutritional depletion, antibiotics, and oxygen depletion. Biofilms are a fascinating topic of study owing to their significant applications in the environment, industry, and health. Latest developments in molecular and biochemical techniques allow scientists to understand the structure, function, and development of microbial biofilms. Although biofilms are known to cause adverse effects in clinical and industrial fields, many biofilms have shown beneficial characteristics for industries such as food and agriculture. The formation of biofilms involves five main steps. 1) attachment to the surface, 2) colonization of the microorganisms, 3) development of the bacterial colonies and production of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS), 4) maturation, which is the formation of a three-dimensional stable community, and 5) active dispersal, where microorganisms detach from the surface and return to their planktonic state. Research shows that certain strains of Enterococcus spp. (E. casseliflavus, E. faecalis, E. faecium), Bacillus spp. (B. subtilis, B. thuringiensis, B. brevis, B. licheniformis, Bacillus polymyxa, Bacillus amyloliquefaciens), Pseudomonas spp. (P. fluorescens, P. putida and P. chlororaphis), Lactobacillus spp. (L. casei, L. paracasei, L. acidophilus, L. plantarum, L. reuteri) and Acetobacter aceti etc. have led to the formation of biofilm that contains beneficial characteristics.
The present research studies are done to study and improve the applications of biofilms in agriculture. This has become an important topic because of the immense potential of biofilms in crop development and protection. Biofilms play a huge role in the colonization of surfaces of roots, shoots, and soil of certain plants, and they allow proliferation in their niche while improving the soil fertility. Even though there are many research articles published on general microbial biofilms, there is very little published data on the biofilm formations of microbes that have agricultural importance and their associations with the ecosystem. Biofilms could be used as biofertilizers, in bioremediation and for nutrient mobilization when applied at high cell densities.
The biofilm’s biochemical, antimicrobial, and biotechnological characteristics make it a crucial candidate in research in agriculture. In situ biofilm generation or fiddling with naturally occurring biofilms are both intriguing technologies for the agriculture sector because they may accomplish a variety of functions with just one inoculation. These technologies can be used to improve soil and reduce damage to the environment through agricultural waste. The establishment of the applied inoculation in the soil and root inoculation depends significantly on the formation of beneficial biofilms. Multispecies biofilm formation is also an important topic as they are capable of producing bioactive compounds or new types of polysaccharides of a different composition when compared with biofilms formed by single species. This mechanism could be used for agricultural and industrial purposes. Biofilms are also able to improve soil quality and its physical properties because of their composition of polysaccharides. More studies should be conducted in the future to fully comprehend and close knowledge gaps about the promising elements associated with biofilms in the field of agriculture.

Yin, W., Wang, Y., Liu, L. and He, J., 2019. Biofilms: The Microbial “Protective Clothing” in Extreme Environments. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 20(14), p.3423.
In text reference; (Yin et al.,2019)

References
Ghiasian, M., 2020. Microbial biofilms: Beneficial applications for sustainable agriculture. New and Future Developments in Microbial Biotechnology and Bioengineering, pp.145-155.
Velmourougane, K., Prasanna, R. and Saxena, A., 2017. Agriculturally important microbial biofilms: Present status and future prospects. Journal of Basic Microbiology, 57(7), pp.548-573.
Yin, W., Wang, Y., Liu, L. and He, J., 2019. Biofilms: The Microbial “Protective Clothing” in Extreme Environments. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 20(14), p.3423.
Solanki, M., Solanki, A., Kumari, B., Kashyap, B. and Singh, R., 2020. Plant and soil-associated biofilm-forming bacteria: Their role in green agriculture. New and Future Developments in Microbial Biotechnology and Bioengineering: Microbial Biofilms, pp.151-164.

Jpg image courtesy;
Micropia.nl. 2022. Biofilm. [online] Available at: <https://www.micropia.nl/en/discover/microbiology/biofilm/> [Accessed 10 September 2022].

Kelp Forests are underwater ecosystems formed in shallow water by the dense growth of several different species known as kelps, which are large brown algae. Among the algae, kelp forests have earned the nickname “blue carbon” for their superpower to remove more than 170 metric tons of the carbon released into the air each year.
Kelp sporophytes release millions of spores. These tiny spores then grow into tiny male or female gametophytes, which can produce either sperm or eggs. After fertilization occurs, the free-floating embryos quickly grip the ocean floor and develop into mature plants.
Kelp forests are found along rocky shorelines, mainly on the Pacific coast, stretching from Alaska to Baja California. They grow further from the tropics than sea grass beds, coral reefs and mangrove forests, meaning that they don’t overlap with those ecosystems. Kelps develop in cold, nutrient-rich waters. They attach to the seafloor and eventually grow to the water’s surface where they rely on sunlight to generate food and energy.
Kelp forests of the Channel Islands experience both warm currents from the south and cold-water current from the north. This mixing of current creates a highly productive system and a diversity of organisms that can only be found over the California coast. Similar to the above ecosystems, they are very important for biodiversity as they provide an underwater habitat to thousands of marine species of fish, invertebrates and other algae. Also, they form a dense barrier between coastlines and damaging waves, providing food and shelter to thousands of marine animal species, as well as other algae.

There are numerous natural impacts as well as human activities that affect kelp forest environments. Diverse natural factors that influence kelp forest stability are grazing by fishes, sea urchins (Sea urchins can destroy entire kelp forests at a rate of 30 feet (9 m) per month by moving in herds) and crustaceans, plant competition, and storms. Human activities also impact the health of kelp forests through kelp harvesting, coastal development, sedimentation, pollution, and fishing.
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, The Nature Conservancy, University of California Los Angeles, and the University of California Santa Barbara have launched the world’s largest map of kelp forest canopies extending from Baja California, Mexico to the Oregon-Washington border. This then developed into a cost-effective, innovative online visualization tool to improve kelp forest mapping and monitoring, which is now housed on https://kelpwatch.org/ as Kelpwatch.

Kelpwatch is a web tool that uses machine learning and remote sensing science to display the kelp forest canopies and analyze the changes it undergoes over time. This mapping tool has been launched amid major, unprecedented declines in many kelp forest ecosystems, which provide crucial services to both humans and nature.

References
https://phys.org/news/2022-04-world-largest-kelp-forest-canopies.html
https://onetreeplanted.org/blogs/stories/kelp-forest-facts
https://oceana.org/marine-life/kelp-forest/
https://www.nps.gov/subjects/oceans/kelp-forests.htm
https://voices.uchicago.edu/dfiwellnews/2019/09/04/surprising-help-from-kelp-and-the-bacteria-who-support-them/

Image Courtesy
https://onetreeplanted.org/blogs/stories/kelp-forest-facts
https://phys.org/news/2022-04-world-largest-kelp-forest-canopies.html

Anyone who has watched the Avatar movie gets their breath taken in when the movie brings you through their beautiful world, especially with different varieties of glowing flora and fauna. Recent discoveries and findings have shown that it is not very far where people will be able to build something very similar in real life. In nature even at present, we can easily find a few animals, microbes like fireflies and mushrooms that can glow due to their bioluminescence. This phenomenon occurs when enzymes react on luciferins within the organism, resulting in releasing energy in the form of light. However, bioluminescence does not occur naturally in plants.
Scientists believe that these bioluminescent plants will not only take us to a gorgeous completely new world, bust also will aid tremendously in exploring and studying plants. This technology will help scientists to monitor how different hormones act inside plant tissues and will help in observing how plants respond to various abiotic (e.g., droughts, salinity) and biotic (e.g., pathogens, herbivores) stresses.
Previously, what researchers have done was, incorporating enzymes required for the synthesis of bioluminescence and luciferins into nanoparticles and insert them into plants. Also, several other researchers have tried inserting bacterial genes that cause bioluminescence into plants. However, those efforts were not successful because of the high cost entangled with the nanotechnology and the luminance being quite weak when using bacterial bioluminescence genes.
The latest research takes a different approach, which uses the process of which fungi illuminate. In 2018, it was discovered that a fungal species Neonothopanus nambi luciferase has a biochemical pathway that produce bioluminescence, similar to that of the firefly luciferase. Fungi use α-pyrone 3-hydroxyhispidin which is oxidized by luciferase in the presence of oxygen which results in the emission of green light (~ 520 nm). It was found that the expression of only a few genes (only 3) from the fungal bioluminescent system is sufficient to obtain considerable level of glowing in eukaryotes.

In the year 2019, Sarkisyan and the team had inserted four genes from the fungus into the DNA of tobacco plants. These genes are related to the enzymes that convert caffeic acid into a luciferin which emits energy as a green light visible to the naked eye. Also they had discovered that the light emitted was 10 times brighter than that of bacterial genes. According to them, the site of expression changes with the growth of the plant. They also had discovered that the brightness reduces with the senescence of the leaves, but there was an increase in the glow at sites where the leaves were damaged. The highest luminescence was observed in flowers.
Investigators hope to take these plants to the market after making the plants brighter and with approved safety regulations. The next target of this team is to insert the fungal genes into the plant’s genome that will be activated by certain hormones. Moreover, it is believed that the tissues at which the hormones are active at different times will show luminescence.

References:
Fleiss, A. and Sarkisyan, K.S., 2019. A brief review of bioluminescent systems (2019). Current genetics, 65(4), pp.877-882.

Image courtesy
Featured image:
https://sharebiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/glowing-tobacco.jpg
Figure 01: Planta/MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/apr/27/scientists-create-glowing-plants-using-mushroom-genes