Book review
The Eect of Mineral-Organic-Micro-Organism Interac-tions on Soil and Freshwater Environments
J. Berthelin, P.M. Huang, J.-M. Bollag, F. Andreux (Eds.); Kluwer Academic/Plenum, New York, 1999, 396 pages, handbound, ISBN 0-306-46216-8, US$ 135.00
Soils can be considered complex systems that main-tain equilibrium in the Earth's surface environment. They support agricultural activity and thus eect food production and population growth. They in¯uence the quantity of carbon recycled to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide and the amount transformed into organic acids that drive chemical weathering. Soils have also been recognised for their ability to absorb wastes from human, animal and industrial sources. Surprisingly, even with such undisputed global importance it is only now becoming apparent that a litany of interrelated mineral-organic-microbial interactions continuously shape its geochemical, biological and physical proper-ties, and hence its overall quality. It was the need to promote research, teaching and the exchange of tech-nology concerning the relationships between the various soil processes that served as the impetus for the 2nd International Symposium ``ISMOM96'' held in Nancy, France in 1996, and the subsequent volume entitled ``The Eect of Mineral-Organic-Microorganism Inter-actions on Soil and Freshwater Environments''
This volume comprises ®ve parts, with 40 dierent chapters. There is a wealth of material covered in the 396 pages, and the breadth of topics will certainly give the reader a wide perspective on the issues currently being addressed in the soil sciences. Part 1 consists of 11 chapters under the general heading of ``Reactivity and transformations of mineral constituents and metals at the solid-solution interfaces''. This assemblage of chap-ters includes both review and speci®c research articles. In short the review articles cover (i) sorption mechan-isms at the solid-water interface and (ii) the character-istics and thermodynamic properties of green rusts. The more speci®c chapters pertain to current research topics and include, (i) comparisons between chemical and bacterial reductive dissolution of pure and Al-sub-stituted goethite, (ii) XPS and AFM comparisons of inorganic oxidation and bioleaching features on pyrite surfaces, (iii) microbial activity and iron transformation
in kaolinite, (iv) the eect of succinic acid on copper sorption, (v) the role of organic acids on iron avail-ability to plants, (vi) the contributions of organic mat-ter, iron and aluminum to soil aggregation, (vii) interactions of mugineic acid with aluminosilicates and gibbsite, (viii) aluminum speciation and mobility in podzols and acid soils and (ix) using ultra®ltration to assess copper resistance in soil bacteria.
Part 2 consists of 11 chapters dealing with ``Nature, dynamics, and transformations of organic compounds and enzymes in soil''. The ®rst set of chapters deal with analytical techniques, and include studies on (i) organic geochemistry techniques to environmental problems, (ii) using ATR-FTIR to characterise metal-organic ¯ocs and (iii) characterising soil organic nitrogen fractions using15N NMR. The following chapters are concerned with the mobility and biochemical interactions of nat-ural organic compounds, including (i) complexation of Cu(II) by various phenols, (ii) protein adsorption onto metal-loaded montmorillonite, (iii) iron oxide and alu-minosilicate adsorption of urease and (iv) the interac-tion of phosphatase with phenols. Lastly, the ®nal chapters in Part 2 conclude with studies on the trans-formation of organic compounds in soils, including (i) enzymatic and mineral oxidation of catechol, (ii) impacts of soil porosity and residue particle size on plant decomposition, (iii) eects of humic compounds on barley and rye growth, (iv) vegetational succession and its in¯uence on humic properties and (v) humi®ca-tion of plant residues on recultivated soils.
In Part 3 the focus shifts to ``Microorganism-colloid interactions and their eect on bioavailability of pollu-tants and nutrients in terrestrial and freshwater envir-onments''. These chapters cover two disparate themes: pollutant bioremediation and nutrient bioavailability. In terms of bioremediation, three consecutive chapters report on (i) interactions between PCB and yeast cells, (ii) geochemical and microbial factors in¯uencing PCB and PAH mobility in sandy soils and (iii) using amended soil organic matter for herbicide degradation. The bioavailabilility aspect is limited to chapters on (i) solu-bilisation of apatite-phosphate coupled to microbial sulphur oxidation and (ii) the bioavailability of soil phosphorus to green algae.
Part 4 considers how the soil environment governs the structure and composition of a microbial population.
0146-6380/00/$ - see front matter#2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. P I I : S 0 1 4 6 - 6 3 8 0 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 0 1 9 - X
Organic Geochemistry 31 (2000) 341±342
Entitled ``Eect of microorganism-colloid-soil interac-tions on dynamics and activity of microbial commu-nities and populations'', the comprising seven chapters include (i) modelling the adhesion of Azospirillum to solid surfaces, (ii) measuring enzyme activity in particle-size fractionated soils, (iii) the eects of metals and montmorillonite onb-glucosidase activity, (iv) optimis-ing biocontrol eciencies of plant-associated bacteria via trace metal amendments, (v) implications of mechanical stresses and strains on soil respiration, (vi) inhibitory eects ofArthriniumonAspergillusspecies in vineyard soils and (vii) the relationship between soil amended sewage sludge and fungal counts and diversity. The ®nal Part (5) is an assortment of chapters devoted to the ``Integration of mineral-organic-microorganism interactions in the evaluation of soil and freshwater quality''. The ®ve chapters encompass (i) bioremedia-tion strategies for chloroaromatic-contaminated soils, (ii) predicting the acid production potential of sulphur-treated soils, (iii) characterising soil enzymes from municipal waste compost, (iv) determining the adsor-bent capacity of methylene blue for red mud and (v) a brief discussion on soil contributions to water quality and water depollution processes.
My overall impression of this volume is positive. Most of the articles are short (on average 10 pages), snappy and informative. The editors have done a ®ne
job in selecting papers that target a range of areas in microbe-metal-organic interactions, with the desired eect of making this volume interdisciplinary in nature. Unfortunately, this also leads to my only criticism which is that, as in most published conference proceed-ings, the articles vary greatly in both their style and quality and, at times, the sequence of chapters appear somewhat disjointed. There is no overall ¯ow to this volume and a reader with a limited background in this subject matter may struggle to develop a sucient grounding to fully appreciate the work presented here. Consequently, I would be averse to recommend this volume as a teaching resource, not even likely at the graduate level. Instead, I feel that the real bene®t of this volume will be to those researchers already active in this ®eld, or at least, with some peripheral interest, i.e. Environmental Geochemists and Geomicrobiologists. Unfortunately, the price of US $135 will constrain the queues at the bookstore, and unquestionably preclude recommending it for student purchase. Whether uni-versity libraries will want to spend this much money for an infrequently used text is also questionable.
Dr. Kurt Konhauser
School of Earth Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK, LS2 9JT
