Mercury-induced alterations in soil microbiome: A potential for microbiome stewardship to remediate contaminated soils

Mercury, a global pollutant, affects the environment and life forms on Earth, including microorganisms that are central in providing support to plants in terrestrial and wetland ecosystems against natural and anthropogenic pollution. Microorganisms are also important in bioremediation of polluted environments. It is vital to understand how mercury impacts microbiome diversity and how microbes remediate this pollutant; as such information is essential for designing effective remediation and restoration strategies especially in contaminated agricultural soils. While the applications of beneficial microorganisms can bioremediate mercury, their efficacy can be affected by host-microbe and microbe-microbe interactions, as well as local environmental conditions. Integrating state-of-the-art ‘omic’ technologies with culturomics provides better insights into microbial community assembly and deciphering core microbial consortia that can catalyze the development of probiotic strains for mercury bioremediation. The present review addresses the above issues and concludes by discussing how probiotic strains if harnessed appropriately, can be used to selectively manipulate the microbial communities for ‘microbiome stewardship’. This approach has the potential to restore mercury-disrupted ecosystem services, thereby boosting plant productivity and aid in achieving sustainable development goals.