Global increase in the population and degradation of environment possess a challenge to crop production worldwide and it is a need of hour to find solutions for abiotic stress, pests, and pathogens. Eco-friendly approach of management by using biopesticides is an alternative against synthetic chemicals. Biopesticides means biological method of control by entanglement and maneuvering of living organisms. Biopesticides comprises microbial pesticides, biochemical pesticides, and plant-incorporated protectants (PIPs). Microbial biopesticides are the products obtained from microorganisms which are beneficial and can be applied against plant diseases and insect pests responsible to cause damage to agricultural crops year after year. Microbial pesticides can play an important role for crop protection in the agricultural-based economy of the world. It is crucial now to popularize the use of these microbial biopesticides among the farmers worldwide. Entomopathogenic bacteria consist of Bacillaceae, Burkholderia, Chromobacterium, Pseudomonas, Saccharopolyspora, Serratia, Streptomyces, and Yersinia species, whereas fungi include various strains of Metarhizium anisopliae, Beauveria bassiana, Hirsutella, Isaria, Lecanicillium, Paecilomyces and Verticillium species. Baculoviruses (insect pathogenic viruses) are species-specific and active against chewing and biting insects, primarily against Lepidopteran caterpillars. Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) include two genera Steinernema and Heterorhabditis showing mutualistic symbiotic association with bacteria Xenorhabdus and Photorhabdus. Biopesticides sources easily exist in nature, are naturally biodegradable, show different modes of action, less expensive, and possess less toxicity to living organisms.

Microbial biopesticides: Current status and advancement for sustainable agriculture and environment

Over the past few decades, the rapid development of agriculture and industries has resulted in contamination of the environment by diverse pollutants, including heavy metals, polychlorinated biphenyls, plastics, and various agrochemicals. Their presence in the environment is of great concern due to their toxicity and non-biodegradable nature. Their interaction with each other and coexistence in the environment greatly influence and threaten the ecological environment and human health. Furthermore, the presence of these pollutants affects the soil quality and fertility. Physicochemical techniques are used to remediate such environments, but they are less effective and demand high costs of operation. Bioremediation is an efficient, widespread, cost-effective, and eco-friendly cleanup tool. The use of microorganisms has received significant attention as an efficient biotechnological strategy to decontaminate the environment. Bioremediation through microorganisms appears to be an economically viable and efficient approach because it poses the lowest risk to the environment. This technique utilizes the metabolic potential of microorganisms to clean up contaminated environments. Many microbial genera have been known to be involved in bioremediation, including Alcaligenes, Arthrobacter, Aspergillus, Bacillus, Burkholderia, Mucor, Penicillium, Pseudomonas, Stenotrophomonas, Talaromyces, and Trichoderma. Archaea, including Natrialba and Haloferax, from extreme environments have also been reported as potent bioresources for biological remediation. Thus, utilizing microbes for managing environmental pollution is promising technology, and, in fact, the microbes provide a useful podium that can be used for an enhanced bioremediation model of diverse environmental pollutants.

Beneficial microbiomes for bioremediation of diverse contaminated environments for environmental sustainability: present status and future challenges

The global energy demand is increasing day by day, with which substantial risk to the environment is also increasing. The consumption of the fuel, as well as the demand, is expected to grow rapidly side by side, and use of fossil energy is causing harmful impacts on the environment. All these factors have greatly attracted the attention of the researchers to find some alternative renewable resources of energy. Biofuels are an outstanding instance of renewable energy which can be produced using biological organisms which will ultimately cause a reduction in dependence on fossil fuels. Thus, biofuels are an attractive and feasible source of renewable energy on contrary to the geopolitical instability, finite nature, and deleterious global effects of fossil fuel energy. Biofuels are basically the energy-enriched chemicals that are generated either directly through the biological processes or from the chemical conversion of the biomass of prior living organisms. Biofuels are chiefly produced by photosynthetic organisms, including photosynthetic bacteria, micro- and macroalgae, and vascular land plants. Among all these organisms utilized, microalgae are being considered to be the most attractive source for production of biofuels. The biofuels production is still challenging at commercial scale, and new strains with commercial potential are still needed to be explored more. The combination of multiple genetic engineering strategies for optimizing the biofuels production will surely be useful. Thus, to overcome the energy crisis, the global cooperative efforts are very important for transforming biofuels into our current energy system that will further aid in cultivation methodology development as well as technology advancement of biofuels production.

Technologies for Biofuel Production: Current Development, Challenges, and Future Prospects

The phyllosphere referred to the total aerial plant surfaces (above-ground portions), as habitat for microorganisms. Microorganisms establish compositionally complex communities on the leaf surface. The microbiome of phyllosphere is rich in diversity of bacteria, fungi, actinomycetes, cyanobacteria, and viruses. The diversity, dispersal, and community development on the leaf surface are based on the physiochemistry, environment, and also the immunity of the host plant. A colonization process is an important event where both the microbe and the host plant have been benefited. Microbes commonly established either epiphytic or endophytic mode of life cycle on phyllosphere environment, which helps the host plant and functional communication with the surrounding environment. To the scientific advancement, several molecular techniques like metagenomics and metaproteomics have been used to study and understand the physiology and functional relationship of microbes to the host and its environment. Based on the available information, this chapter describes the basic understanding of microbiome in leaf structure and physiology, microbial interactions, especially bacteria, fungi, and actinomycetes, and their adaptation in the phyllosphere environment. Further, the detailed information related to the importance of the microbiome in phyllosphere to the host plant and their environment has been analyzed. Besides, biopotentials of the phyllosphere microbiome have been reviewed.

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Phyllospheric Microbiomes: Diversity, Ecological Significance, and Biotechnological Applications

Copper (Cu) and Cobalt (Co) are among the most toxic heavy metals from mining and other industrial activities. Both are known to pose serious environmental concerns, particularly to water resources, if not properly treated. In recent years several filamentous fungal strains have been isolated, identified and assessed for their heavy metal biosorption capacity for potential application in bioremediation of Cu and Co wastes. Despite the growing interest in heavy metal removal by filamentous fungi, their exploitation faces numerous challenges such as finding suitable candidates for biosorption. Based on current findings, various strains of filamentous fungi have high metal uptake capacity, particularly for Cu and Co. Several works indicate that Trichoderma, Penicillium, and Aspergillus species have higher Cu and Co biosorption capacity compared to other fungal species such as Geotrichum, Monilia, and Fusarium. It is believed that far more fungal species with even higher biosorption capability are yet to be isolated. Furthermore, the application of filamentous fungi for bioremediation is considered environmentally friendly, highly effective, reliable, and affordable, due to their low technology pre-requisites. In this review, we highlight the capacity of various identified filamentous fungal isolates for biosorption of copper and cobalt from various environments, as well as their future prospects.

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Recent Advances in Biosorption of Copper and Cobalt by Filamentous Fungi.

Endophytic fungi are abundant and have been reported from all tissues such as roots, stems, leaves, flowers, and fruits. In recent years, research into the beneficial use of endophytic fungi has increased worldwide. In this chapter, we critically review the production of a wide range of secondary metabolites, bioactive compounds from fungal endophytes that are a potential alternative source of secondary plant metabolites and natural producers of high-demand drugs. One of the major areas in endophytic research that holds both economic and environmental potential is bioremediation. During their life span, microbes adapt fast to environmental pollutants and remediate their surrounding microenvironment. In the last two decades, bioremediation has arisen as a suitable alternative for remediating large polluted sites. Endophytic fungi producing ligninolytic enzymes have possible biotechnological applications in lignocellulosic biorefineries. This chapter highlights the recent progress that has been made in screening endophytic fungi for the production and commercialization of certain biologically active compounds of fungal endophytic origin.

Endophytic Fungi: Biodiversity, Ecological Significance, and Potential Industrial Applications

The genus Trichoderma is ubiquitous in the environment, particularly in soils. Trichoderma species could be readily isolated from soil by all available conventional methods, largely because they grow rapidly and also because of their abundant conidiation. Based on the phylogenetic study, several researchers reported that Trichoderma and Hypocrea form a single holomorph genus, within which two major clades can be distinguished. The species of Trichoderma possess diverse biotechnological applications such as they act as biofungicide for controlling various plant diseases, as biofertilizers for plant growth promotion. Trichoderma secrete diverse volatile compounds including alcohols, aldehydes and ketones, ethylene, hydrogen cyanide, and monoterpenes, as well as nonvolatile compounds including peptaibols and diketopiperazine-like gliotoxin and gliovirin which are known to exhibit antibiotic activity. The interaction of Trichoderma with the host plant results in parasitism/predation; production of antibiotic is combined with mycoparasitism (penetration and infection), production of cell wall-degrading enzymes or lytic enzymes, competition for nutrients or for space, and establishment of induced resistance in the plant.

Anu Dhiman

Papers

Endophytic Fungi: Biodiversity, Ecological Significance, and Potential Industrial Applications

Trichoderma: Biodiversity, Ecological Significances, and Industrial Applications