Team:Imperial College London/Human/Ecology
From 2011.igem.org
Revision as of 08:57, 29 July 2011 by RebekkaBauer (Talk | contribs)
Ecology | |
Effect on soil fauna | |
There is no known negative effect of auxin on soil fauna. However, earthworms take up nutrients through their coelum and may be affected by heightened auxin concentrations, although this has not been established in the literature (Dr Alexandru Milcu, oral communication). | |
Effect on soil microorganisms | |
E. coli do not naturally occur in the soil (REF), which makes it hard to predict its influence on other soil microorganisms. | |
Effect on plant population composition | monocots differently. While it induces lateral root growth and inhibits deep root growth in both types of plants, only diots are influenced negatively by exogenous auxin, on |which it can act as a herbicide (McSteen, 2010). Supplying auxin to the soil may therefore result in selecting against dicots and causing a predominantly monocot population to |grow fibrous networks of plants. |
While this may be detrimental for crop usage, dense netowrks of roots lead to an exponential water erosion decrease (Gyssels & Poesen, 2003). Fibrous root networks are therefore advantageous when trying to prevent soil erosion. | |
use our auxin-secreting bacteria as soil “fertiliser“ for crops. |