Holden and Firestone Article

Week 9

October 22nd, 2007

Holden and Firestone Article

Holden, P.A. and M.K. Firestone. 1997. Soil microorganisms is soil cleanup: how can we improve our understanding? J. Environ. Qual. 26: 32-40.

1.) With what university are these authors associated?

2.) How do these authors define soil quality? What do they recognize about this definition?

3.) List a few examples of pollutants that occur naturally.

4.) How do microbes move in the soil profile? How does this affect bioremediation?

5.) How is surface soil (in the macroscale) and the rhizosphere (in the mesoscale) similar with respect to microorganisms?

6.) What do the authors propose to be important for conducting laboratory work on microbial degradation problems?

7.) Which domain in Fig. 6 would soil scientists most likely be interested? What factors/constituents does this domain include? Describe how these factors could influence microbial populations.

8.) Explain Fig. 7 using words. (Hint: see the first two full paragraphs of pg. 39.)