MICROBIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF ENVIRONMENTAL FATE STUDIES OF PESTICIDES

Surface and subsurface soils are complex biological, chemical, and phy sical environments and to understand the fate of pesticides in the soi l environment is a formidable task. To determine the environmental fat e of pesticides requires a diverse array of techniques and procedures. Microbiological approaches range from applied to basic, laboratory to field, qualitative to quantitative, and from low to high technology. In the arena of biodegradation, teams of scientists are needed to deve lop predictive models for the behavior of pesticides in the soil envir onment. From our perspectives, we have documented the existing status of the microbiology of environmental fate studies with pesticides. Ver ification of data from laboratory studies to the field environment is needed, On the other hand, efforts to design better field studies to a ssess microbial processes are essential to advance our understanding o f environmental fate studies with pesticides.