ABSTRACT
Soil is the most biologically diverse component of our global environment. Soil borne organisms directly influence ecosystem services, and hence crop-based agricultural productivity and sustainability (SP-IPM, 2012). Soil consists of beneficial organisms that confer an array of vital functions ranging from soil creation and texture, nutrient cycling, carbon sequestration, organic matter regulation and provision of natural enemies of crop pests and diseases. Conversely, soil also contains organisms that antagonize the production and quality of foods produced from crops, such as weeds, parasitic nematodes and insects, disease-causing bacteria and fungi and mycotoxin producers. Agricultural intensification, globalization, land use management, crop monocultures and the wide distribution of crop germplasm with narrow genetic diversity, creates negative selection pressures on soil biodiversity (Haddad et al., 2015; Tsiafouli et al., 2015). Climate change provides an additional selection pressure on soil borne genera, species, strains and populations by altering environmental parameters and the geographical redistribution of crops (Beed et al., 2015).
