Emerging Frontiers in Rhizosphere Science Workshop at Warrenton, VA

土壤是无数关键的水-生物-地球化学耦合过程的宿主，这些过程在根部附近大大加强，为植物生长提供营养、水和支持生命的共生关系。越来越清楚的是，植物通过复杂的反馈系统与根部周围的土壤以非常精确的，有时是故意的方式相互作用，操纵生物地球物理和生物地球化学条件，最终影响矿物风化，养分和碳循环，水动力学以及微生物物种分布和丰度。这种相互作用的一个例子是豆科植物在氮胁迫下吸引固氮微生物共生体的化学信号。关于根际相互作用的新工作继续为化感作用、养分获取、趋化性和抗病等主题提供见解。根际科学本质上是跨学科的，涵盖了植物、其他土壤生物和土壤物理化学性质的相互作用。然而，许多工作仍然是一维的，因为它仅限于研究相互作用的一个方面（例如植物-真菌内生菌相互作用的植物生理学），而忽略了这些相互作用在区域或全球尺度上的切向效应（植物-真菌相互作用对根渗出物组成、矿物风化、土壤微生物生态、C和N动态等的影响）。此外，关于植物地下过程的遗传控制，以及植物和根周围复杂微生物联合体的基因表达如何通过特定的反馈系统相互关联，我们知之甚少。显然，要想解开围绕根际复杂相互作用的谜团，并阐明影响养分和碳循环以及水利用效率的耦合水文生物地球化学过程的控制，将需要跨学科的协调努力。本次研讨会的总体目标是将来自多个交叉学科的研究人员聚集在一起，评估根际圈科学的现状，确定关键问题，并制定必要的变革性研究议程，以促进理解根际过程及其在生态系统功能、气候变化、可持续性以及粮食、能源和水安全中的作用所需的突破。

Soil is host to a myriad of critical coupled hydrobiogeochemical processes, greatly intensified in the vicinity of the root, which provide nutrients, water and life supporting symbiotic associations required for plant growth. It is becoming increasingly clear that plants interact through complex feedback systems with the soil surrounding their roots in a very precise and sometimes deliberate manner, manipulating biogeophysical and biogeochemical conditions which ultimately influence mineral weathering, nutrient and C cycling, water dynamics, and microbial species distribution and abundance. An example of this type of interaction is that of the chemical signaling that occurs in leguminous plants to attract nitrogen fixing microbial symbionts when under nitrogen stress. New work on rhizosphere interactions continues to provide insights into such topics as allelopathy, nutrient acquisition, chemotaxis, and disease resistance, among others. Rhizosphere science is inherently interdisciplinary and covers the interaction of plants, other soil organisms and the physicochemical properties of soils. However, much of the work has remained one-dimensional in that it has been limited to examining one facet of the interaction (e.g. plant physiology of plant-fungal endophyte interactions) while neglecting the tangential effects of these interactions (influence of the plant-fungal interaction on root exudate composition, mineral weathering, soil microbial ecology, C and N dynamics, etc.) on regional or global scales. Furthermore, little is known concerning the genetic controls on below ground processes in plants and how gene expression in plants and in the complex microbial consortium surrounding roots might be interrelated through specific feedback systems. It is clear that progress in unraveling the mysteries surrounding the complex interactions in the rhizosphere and illuminating the controls on coupled hydrobiogeochemical processes influencing nutrient and C cycling and water use efficiency, will require a concerted interdisciplinary effort. The overall objective of the proposed workshop is to bring together researchers from multiple, cross-cutting disciplines to evaluate the current state of rhizosphere science, define the key questions, and map out a transformative research agenda necessary to foster the breakthroughs required to understand rhizosphere processes and their role in ecosystem function, climate change, sustainability, as well as food, energy and water security.