Microbial Biodiversity in Agroforestry Systems

Agroforestry system is a combination of trees with crops in the same area to have optimum beneficial ecological interactions among ecosystem components. One of the major ecosystem services of agroforestry is conservation of biodiversity in each geographic location owing to the alarming rate of destruction of forests and extent of soil perturbation worldwide. Microbial biodiversity as the hub of ecosystem facilitates sustainable agroforestry to mankind by providing food, fibre and non-timber forest products. Agroforestry system is one of the hopes for progress towards sustainable developments, ecosystem services through microbial diversity and improvement of soil health. The major candidates of importance in agroforestry include symbiotic nitrogen fixers, non-symbiotic nitrogen fixers, phosphate-mobilizing organisms (mainly mycorrhizal fungi) and disease-preventing endophytic microbes. Depending on the management and health of agroforestry, the microbial diversity boost towards tripartite or multiple associations (or consortia) with plant species, which leads to sustainable developments in favour of incalculable ecosystem services. The composition of microbial diversity could be managed based on the diversity of tree species and food crops considered for practice of agroforestry system. Global coordinated efforts in evaluation of microbial biodiversity result in greater understanding, management of agroforestry systems towards sustainability and reaping the benefit of ecosystem services.