Plant growth–promoting bacteria and their role in environmental management

Over last few decades, environmental contaminants have emerged as the severe concern to the productivity of number of natural ecosystem. Rapid industrialization in developed countries and indiscriminate overexploitation of chemical fertilizers in developing countries are the important factors responsible for changing environmental conditions. In addition, anthropogenic activities such as mining activities, huge amount of wastewater discharge, and xenobiotics application and natural phenomena such as volcanic eruptions and rock weathering have directly or indirectly affected the productivity of plant, soil, and environment and human health. To remediate the hazardous environmental contaminants, various conventional physicochemical methods are presently in practice, but because of their high cost, toxicity, and production of secondary pollutants, the process is still inefficient for large-scale application. In this context, management using biological agents such as microbes or specific plants is being practiced to remediate the environmental contaminants. This chapter discusses about the environmental contaminants and their impact on the normal functioning of plant, soil, and animals. It has also emphasized on the role of plant growth–promoting bacteria and their potential mechanism of action in bioremediation strategies for the management of environmental contaminants.