Microbiology
Microbiology (from Greek , "mīkros", "small"; , "bios", "life"; and , "-logia") is the study of microorganisms, those being unicellular (single cell), multicellular (cell colony), or acellular (lacking cells). Microbiology encompasses numerous sub-disciplines including virology, parasitology, mycology and bacteriology.
Metagenomics
The soils in which plants grow are inhabited by microbial communities, with one gram of soil containing around 10-10 microbial cells which comprise about one gigabase of sequence information. The microbial communities which inhabit soils are some of the most complex known to science, and remain poorly understood despite their economic importance. Microbial consortia perform a wide variety of ecosystem services necessary for plant growth, including fixing atmospheric nitrogen, nutrient cycling, disease suppression, and sequester iron and other metals. Functional metagenomics strategies are being used to explore the interactions between plants and microbes through cultivation-independent study of these microbial communities. By allowing insights into the role of previously uncultivated or rare community members in nutrient cycling and the promotion of plant growth, metagenomic approaches can contribute to improved disease detection in crops and livestock and the adaptation of enhanced farming practices which improve crop health by harnessing the relationship between microbes and plants.