Evaluation of soil health on the basis of bacterial diversity present in different landforms of north west Himalaya

Critical zone is the heterogeneous, near surface environment in which complex interactions involving rock, soil, water, air, and living organisms regulate the natural habitat and determine the availability of life-sustaining resources. In current Anthropocene era, growing population exerting stress on the environment and the services provided. Therefore, it is important to understand the critical zone functioning and how ecosystem is effected by different type of processes which include both natural and anthropogenic activities. Hence, to monitor these activities in the critical zone experts from Pedology, Geomorphology, Hydrology, Biology, Environmental Science and Computational Science work under single umbrella in a collaborative manner. Soil is one of the major component of critical zone and function as a vital living system, to sustain biological productivity, maintain or enhance the quality of air, water and promote plant, animal and human health. Microbes are one of the key and determining components of the soil in the critical zone. Bacterial community plays a major role in soil health thereby balances the ecosystem. To study the impact of climate change, land use pattern and the relationship between biotic and abiotic factors, three different landforms viz. forest cover land, agricultural land and flood zone land have been selected and its soil health was analyzed. Bacterial diversity and functional analysis have been explored and compared among three landforms using Illumina sequencing platform.