Role of pathogens, signal recalcitrance, and organisms shifting for ecosystem recuperation. A review

Nature ability to adapt to ecosystem changes such as cultivation depends upon microbial interactions with plant, animals and humans. A such organisation is made possible in particular by signal exchanges, horizontal and vertical transfers of genetic material from one organism to another, the efficient use of pathogens and environment in food web interactions, the ability to metabolic modifications of shifting, and the potential to assume dormancy under unfavorable conditions. So far industrial agriculture has led to pollution and declines of biodiversity and soil carbon. The biodiversity of agricultural fields can be improved by several processes such as DNA-uptake; viruses and horizontal gene transfers; animals carrying propagules, spores, cysts and seeds from less disrupted environments; and sexual reproduction. Within weeks soil water retention capacity, nutrients availability, communication, and high biomass production is improved. In less perturbed but unfertilized, shifting cultivation systems a return to original productivities needs about 50 years.