Role of Plant-Microbe Partnerships to Deal with Environmental Challenges

Abstract

The remediation options currently available for contaminated soils and groundwater are frequently expensive and environmentally invasive, and do not make efficient use of existing biological resources. Therefore, they cannot be employed for the treatment of large contaminated areas with diffuse pollution problems. As a complement to these conventional methods, currently emerging bioremediation technologies might provide a more cost-effective remediation approach. However, large-scale applications of bioremediation presently face a number of obstacles, including the levels of the pollutants (being toxic for the organisms involved in remediation), the bioavailable fraction of the contaminants (being too low) and, in some cases, evapotranspiration of volatile organic pollutants from soil or groundwater to the atmosphere.