Bioaugmentation of soils by increasing microbial richness: missing links

It is generally assumed that increased microbial diversity corresponds to i ncreased catabolic potential and, hence, to better removal of metabolites a nd pollutants. Yet, microbial diversity, more specifically richness of spec ies in environmental samples and sites, is difficult to assess. It is propo sed to interpret this diversity more in the framework of Pareto's law, i.e. 20% of the species govern 80% of the energy flux of the ecosystem. Ecologi cal studies should attempt to delineate the main energy fluxes and that gro up of species playing quantitative key roles in the system. Consequently, b ioaugmentation should aim at the rearrangement of the group of organisms do minantly involved in the overall energy flux, so that specific catabolic tr aits necessary for the clean up of pollutants are part of that active group . For soil ecosystems, the capacity of plant roots as creators of physical and chemical discontinuity should be used more strategically to bring about such rearrangements. Overall, this paper identifies a number of ecological concepts, such as the Pareto law, the Gompertz model and plant community-i nduced microbial competence, which may, given careful underpinning, open ne w perspectives for microbial ecology and biodegradation.