Bede Mickan

UWA/Murdoch

The coordination/trade-off among below-ground strategies for phosphorus (P) acquisition, including root morphology, carboxylate exudation and colonisation by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), is not well understood. This is the first study investigating the relationships between root nodulation, morphology, carboxylates, and colonisation by an in...

Subalpine peat wetlands are extremely sensitive due to global environmental changes and anthropogenic disturbances. Unlike most other biological groups, plant species can possess dormant life‐history stages such as soil seed bank (SSB), which may help plant communities to resist or at least postpone the detrimental impact of disturbance. This study...

Key message Inoculation of wheat seedling with Bacillus sp. wp-6 changed amino acid metabolism and flavonoid synthesis and promoted plant growth. Abstract Plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR), which can reduce the use of agrochemicals, is vital for the development of sustainable agriculture. In this study, proteomics and metabolomics analys...

Diversion of food waste from landfill through anaerobic digestion is a sustainable form of energy production (biogas) and the waste effluent (digestate) can be utilised as nutrient supply for microalgae cultivation. However, digestate has very high nutrient concentrations and is highly turbid, making it difficult to utilize as a nutrient source wit...

Globally, the valorisation of food waste into digestate through the process of anaerobic digestion is becoming increasingly popular. As a result, a large amount of food-waste digestate will need to be properly utilised. The utilisation of anaerobic digestion for fertiliser and alternative uses is essential to obtain a circular bioeconomy. The revie...

Environmental conditions (pH and temperature) are expected to influence microbial community composition and product spectrum in mixed-culture food waste (FW) fermentation. However, some conditions may favour growth of multiple organisms that compete for common substrates or consume target metabolites. The inoculum plays an integral role in mixed-cu...

Background and aims This study investigated whether root traits at the seedling stage are maintained at the flowering stage in two chickpea (Cicer arietinum) genotypes with contrasting root morphology and physiology; and whether the genotype with greater rhizosheath carboxylates mobilises more poorly-available phosphorus (P) pools to increase shoot...

Food waste can be used via anaerobic digestion (AD) to produce biogas. The liquid by-product (digestate) contains nitrogen (mainly as ammonium) which is susceptible to N loss as a fertiliser and also faces logistical constraints for agricultural use. Biochar can adsorb and retain nutrients and alter microbial N-cycling processes. We investigated th...

Currently, 1.3 billion tonnes of food are thrown away each year, most of which are incinerated or landfilled causing large environmental, social, and economic issues. Therefore, the utilisation of food waste as biofertilisers, such as composts and digestates, is a solution to reduce the problems created by incineration and landfilling whilst simult...

Key message Herein, the inoculation with strain wp-6 promoted the growth of wheat seedlings by improving the energy production and conversion of wheat seedlings and alleviating salt stress. AbstractSoil salinization decreases crop productivity due to high toxicity of sodium ions to plants. Plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) have been demon...

Land application of sewage sludge is increasingly used as an alternative to landfilling and incineration owing to a considerable content of carbon and essential plant nutrients in sewage sludge. However, the presence of chemical and biological contaminants in sewage sludge poses potential dangers; therefore, sewage sludge must be suitably treated b...

Coupling lactic acid (LA) production with food waste (FW) anaerobic digestion (AD) can facilitate the next generation biorefinery to increase revenue and economic viability of FW AD. For this, LA should be effectively extracted from complex fermentation broths with minimal adverse effects on subsequent AD to maximise economic benefit. This study ev...

Background: Global warming can alter plant productivity, and community composition which has consequences for soil-plant associated microorganisms. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are distributed widely and form symbiotic relationships with more than 80% of vascular plants and play a key role in nutrient cycling processes at the ecosystem scale...

Within the biorefinery concept, microalgal cultivation has potential as one component of the wastewater treatment toolkit for anaerobic digestates. Recovering nutrients from digestate such as anaerobic digestate of piggery effluent, has been well demonstrated with Scenedesmus sp. and Chlorella sp. in mixed cultures. Less understood during microalga...

It is widely claimed that common mycorrhizal networks (CMN) play significant roles in facilitated transfer of nutrients between plants. This experiment investigated the role of a common mycorrhizal network with a C3 legume and a C4 grass under drought-stressed conditions, and assessed whether there was an interaction between water and plant species...

Biostimulants are gaining momentum as potential soil amendments to increase plant health and productivity. Plant growth responses to some biostimulants and poorly soluble fertilizers could increase soil microbial diversity and provide greater plant access to less soluble nutrients. We assessed an agricultural soil amended with a multispecies microb...

Co-application of biochar and biosolids to soil has potential to mitigate N leaching due to physical and chemical properties of biochar. Changes in N cycling pathways in soil induced by co-application of biological amendments could further mitigate N loss, but this is largely unexplored. The aim of this study was to determine whether co-application...

Anaerobic digestion facilities can become biorefineries to produce higher-value products together with biogas energy and nutrient-rich digestate. To inform future biorefinery concepts with lactic acid recovery, the current study monitored organic acids in a pre-fermentation stage at a commercial anaerobic digestion facility. The study assessed lact...

1. Global interest in building healthy soils combined with new DNA sequencing technologies has led to the generation of a vast amount of soil microbial community (SMC) data. 2. SMC analysis is being adopted widely for monitoring ecological restoration trajecto-ries. However, despite the large and growing quantity of soil microbial data, it remains...

Global food wastage equates to about 1.3 billion tons per year, which causes serious environmental impacts. The objective of this study was to evaluate the influences of addition of digestate from food waste in comparison to a synthetic liquid urea ammonium nitrate solution on plant growth, rhizosphere bacterial community composition and diversity,...

Plastic film mulching can affect soil organic carbon (C) lability in semiarid regions. Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi represent an important route for plant‐derived C into soil and can be influenced by agricultural practices. Whether the changes of AM fungal community affect soil organic C sequestration is a fundamental question in semiarid envi...

More than half of the fertilizer applied to farmers’ field is lost, causing significant economic losses. To overcome this, a polymer-coated rock mineral fertilizer was investigated using wheat (Triticum aestivum L. cv. Wyalkatchem). In addition, a multispecies microbial inoculant was added to seeds as a biostimulant to enhance fertilizer use effici...

Southern highbush blueberry plants (Vaccinium corymbosum hybrid) from a commercial blueberry farm were placed in quarantine glasshouses and either exposed to adults of the western golden‐haired blowfly Calliphora albifrontalis (Malloch) or no insects at all over a 21‐week period. Laboratory reared C. albifrontalis were regularly released into one h...

Anaerobic digestion (AD) of food waste diverts organic waste from landfills, generates sustainable baseload energy, and potentially an ecotoxic ammonia-rich digestate that requires post-treatment. Successful application of algal-based technology to treating high-ammonia AD effluents can be achieved by freshwater dilution. However, dilution of high-...

Defoliation often has little effect on the percent plant root length colonised by arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi, and this has been interpreted as a lack of support for the carbon limitation hypothesis. We performed an experiment with three levels of repeated defoliation (none, every 3 weeks and weekly) of Lolium rigidum growing in pasture soil,...

Mycorrhizas play a vital role in ecosystem function, diversity and productivity. However, mycorrhizas in tropical forests are considered to be a neglected area of research in contrast to the well-studied diversity patterns of macro organisms. To this end, soil samples from 0 to 30 cm in depth were collected from six or four elevations in a typical...

Microalgae (MA) and purple phototrophic bacteria (PPB) have the ability to remove and recover nutrients from digestate (anaerobic digestion effluent) and pre-settled pig manure that can be Utilized as bio-fertilizer and organic fertilizer. The objective of this study was to compare the effectiveness of MA and PPB as organic fertilizers and soil con...

Soils are crucial in regulating ecosystem processes, such as nutrient cycling, and supporting plant growth. To a large extent, these functions are carried out by highly diverse and dynamic soil microbiomes that are in turn governed by numerous environmental factors including weathering profile and vegetation. In this study, we investigate geophysic...

The objective of this study was to determine how soil disturbance and soil water deficit alter colonisation of roots by naturally occurring arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi and rhizosphere bacteria. Soil cores were collected at the end of summer from a cropped paddock with a 5-year history of no-tillage in south-western Australia which has a Medit...

Short term inhibition tests, 16S rRNA tag sequencing and Phylogenetic Investigation of Communities by Reconstruction of Unobserved States (PICRUSt), were employed to visualise the effects of increasing total ammoniacal nitrogen (TAN) concentration (3400–10166 ppm TAN) on microbial community structure and metabolic pathways for acetate degradation....

Microbial inoculants, including those formed from multiple species, may have dual functions as biostimulants and/or biocontrol agents, and claimed agricultural benefits are instrumental for regulatory categorisation. Biostimulants include commercial products containing substances or microorganisms that stimulate plant growth. Biostimulant microbes...

Soil respiration is one of the main fluxes in the global carbon cycle. The effect of temperature on soil respiration is well understood. The response of soil respiration to temperature warming is called apparent temperature sensitivity (Q10) of soil respiration, which is an important parameter in modeling soil CO2 effluxes under global climate warm...

Applications of compost and clay to ameliorate soil constraints such as water stress are potential management strategies for sandy agricultural soils. Water repellent sandy soils in rain-fed agricultural systems limit production and have negative environmental effects associated with leaching and soil erosion. The aim was to determine whether compo...

Molecular ecology studies of fungi in roots and soils involve sampling DNA from heterogeneous environments. There is a wide range of fungal life strategies, including modes of sporulation, and interactions some fungi may have with roots of different plant species. Therefore, assessment of the relative abundance of fungi in these complex environment...

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi form intimate associations with the roots of about 85% of all terrestrial plants, and can greatly increase a plant’s uptake of soil nutrients and have been shown to influence plant diversity in several ecosystems. A lot of studies have reported the effect of arbuscular mycorrhizas on plant density, species diversit...

Biochar may alleviate plant water stress in association with arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi but research has not been conclusive. Therefore, a glasshouse experiment was conducted to understand how interactions between AM fungi and plants respond to biochar application under water-stressed conditions. A twin chamber pot system was used to determi...

Arbuscular mycorrhiza (AM) fungi are considered as an important factor in predicting plants and ecosystem responses to climate changes on a global scale. The Tibetan Plateau is the highest region on Earth with abundant natural resources and one of the most sensitive region to climate changes. To evaluate the complex response of arbuscular mycorrhiz...

Arbuscular mycorrhiza (AM) fungi are considered as an important factor in predicting plants and ecosystem responses to climate changes on a global scale. The Tibetan Plateau is the highest region on Earth with abundant natural resources and one of the most sensitive region to climate changes. To evaluate the complex response of arbuscular mycorrhiz...

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi belong to the phylum Glomeromycota and form symbioses with more than 80 % of terrestrial plants. They have a range of roles related to soil functions. AM fungi and ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungi are the most abundant and common symbionts in agricultural and forest ecosystems, respectively. The functions of mycorrhizas...

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi can aid in the alleviation of host plant water stress under soil water-deficit conditions. AM fungi are likely to alleviate water stress through a combination of processes. The mechanisms involved may operate directly through enhancing plant water uptake or indirectly through modification of the rhizosphere-soil en...

Desert ephemeral plants play an important role in desert ecosystem. Soil water availability is consid-ered as the major restrictive factor limiting the growth of ephemeral plants. Moreover, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AM fungi) are widely reported to improve the growth of desert ephemerals. The present study aimed to test the hypothesis of that A...