Role of psychrotrophic bacteria and cold-active enzymes in composting methods adopted in cold regions.

Temperature-dependent composting is a challenging task but is worthy if it is done in the right manner. Cold composting has been known to be practiced since ancient times but there were not enough advancements to overcome the long mesophilic phase and bring the compost maturation to a short period. The composting processes that have been well practiced are discussed and the role of psychrotrophic bacteria that produce cold tolerant hydrolytic enzymes has been highlighted. In this chapter, the mechanism of substrate degradation has been elaborated to better understand the need of specific bacteria for a specific kind of substrate allowing fast and efficient decomposition. This chapter attempts to pave an appropriate way and suggest the best-suited method of composting for efficient production of compost by the conservation of heat in cold regions.

Cold-adapted Exiguobacterium sibiricum K1 as a potential bioinoculant in cold regions: Physiological and genomic elucidation of biocontrol and plant growth promotion.

The scarcity of soil nutrient availability under cold conditions of Himalayan regions needs a sustainable approach for better crop yields. The cold-adapted bacteria, Exiguobacterium sibiricum K1, with the potential to produce several plant growth-promoting (PGP) attributes, nitrogen fixation, indole acetic acid production, phosphate and potassium solubilization at 10 °C can provide an opportunity to promote crop yield improvement in an eco-friendly way under cold conditions. The bacterium also exhibited biocontrol activity against two phytopathogens and produced siderophore (53.0 ± 0.5 % psu). The strain's PGP properties were investigated using a spinach-based bioassay under controlled conditions. The bacterized seeds showed a notable increase in germination rate (23.2 %), shoot length (65.3 %), root length (56.6 %), leaf area (73.7 %), number of leaflets (65.2 %), and dry matter (65.2 %). Additionally, the leaf analysis indicated elevated chlorophyll pigments, i.e., chlorophyll a (55.5 %), chlorophyll b (42.8 %), carotenoids (35.2 %), percentage radical scavenging activity (47.4 %), and leaf nutrient uptake such as nitrogen (23.4 %), calcium (60.8 %), potassium (62.3 %), and magnesium (28.9 %). Moreover, the whole-genome sequencing and genome mining endorsed various biofertilisation-related genes, including genes for potassium and phosphate solubilization, iron and nitrogen acquisition, carbon dioxide fixation, and biocontrol ability of Exiguobacterium sibiricum K1. Overall, this study highlights the role of Exiguobacterium sibiricum K1 as a potential bioinoculant for improving crop yield under cold environments.

IHM-DB: a curated collection of metagenomics data from the Indian Himalayan Region, and automated pipeline for 16S rRNA amplicon-based analysis (AutoQii2).

Indian Himalayan metagenome database (IHM-DB) is a web-based database consisting of information on metagenomic datasets from various databases and publications that are specifically reported from the Indian Himalayan Region (IHR). The online interface allows users to view or download the dataset-specific information for the respective states, category-wise, or according to the hypervariable region. The IHM-DB also provides an opportunity for the users to access the metagenomic publications from the IHR as well as upload their microbiome information to the website. Additionally, an open-source 16S rRNA amplicon-based automated bioinformatics pipeline, AutoQii2, allows users to analyze the single-end and paired-end raw reads. AutoQii2 provides an automated approach for performing analysis such as quality check, adapter and chimera removal and exploits the latest ribosomal database project classifier for taxonomic assignments. The source code of the AutoQii2 pipeline is available at https://gitlab.com/khatriabhi2319/autoqii2. Database URL https://ham.ihbt.res.in/ihmdb and https://fgcsl.ihbt.res.in/ihmdb.

Environmental impact of COVID-19 pandemic: more negatives than positives.

Coronaviruses are the well-known cause of severe respiratory, enteric and systemic infections in a wide range of animal hosts including man. The scientific interest on coronaviruses has increased since the outbreak of COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) that initiated in Wuhan, China. This was soon declared a 'Public Health Emergency of International Concern' by World Health Organisation (WHO). Presently, the best strategy against this pandemic is prevention through regular hand and face washes, use of masks, gloves and personal protective equipment and social distancing. At the government level, the task is to perform as many tests as possible to identify coronavirus infected people and to isolate them to avoid the uncontrollable spread of the virus. The ongoing and future strategies against coronavirus ensue that huge quantity of masks, plastic products (personal protective equipment (PPE) kits, face shields, etc.) and chemicals (chloroxylenol, chlorine, H2O2, etc.) would be generated as waste in near future. Further, the amount of water consumption per person shall also increase. These effects can have unforeseen impacts on the environment. Apart from this, the ecological impacts on human-animal interactions can also be seen, such as people avoiding pets in coming future as a health and safety measure. The present review gives an overview of coronavirus, its current state of spread and environmental and ecological risks ensuing from the pandemic.