Effect of iron-porphyrin treatment on soil microbial communities

Intensive agricultural management have led to an increasing transfer of carbon from soil organic matter (SOM) to atmospheric CO2. It is noteworthy that the flux of CO2 from the soil is ten times greater than fossil fuel emission from industrial and automotive activities. Piccolo and co-workers (1999) suggested that hydrophobic humic components in soil exerted hydrophobic protection towards easily degradable compounds. They postulated that associations of apolar molecules deriving from plant degradation and microbial activity incorporate more polar molecules, thus preventing their otherwise rapid microbial degradation and enhancing their persistence in soil. Moreover, synthetic metal-porphyr…