Soil Microbial Dynamics in Carbon Farming of Agro-Ecosystems

The role of soil microbes in the carbon sequestration in different agro-ecosystems is magnificent. From the carbon cycle to nutrient cycling and the synthesis of organic matter, the role of the microbial community is undoubtedly important. Besides the many-fold necessities of global carbon, its balance has been entwined with a major serious problem, and we must be aware of it in terms of climate change. This state of imbalance in the global carbon cycle is largely due to the continuous industrial emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (GHGs), burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, and the unwelcome land use system like the conversion of grassland and forestland to agricultural land, which have resulted in the historic losses of soil carbon to the atmosphere. However, in the context of climate change, there is less attention given to the concept of carbon sequestration in agricultural ecosystems, which is supposed to be the alternative means in offsetting future emissions effect on the GHG concentrations in the atmosphere. In this chapter, the possible ways and the factors that impact the increased rate of removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere with the herculean duty of microbial communities to accelerate the gigantic tasks, storing carbon through ecosystems like in plant material, decomposing detritus, and organic soil are overviewed. In this way, the soil of the agricultural lands which are highly productive ecosystems can become biological scrubbers through CO2 sequestration from the atmosphere.