Multitrophic microbial interactions for eco- and agro-biotechnological processes: theory and practice

• Multitrophic microbial loop interactions drive sustainable agriculture and ecosystem services.
• These interactions are relatively less investigated with respect to the development of sustainable eco-and agro-biotechnologies.
• Climate and land use changes are adversely affecting the earth ecosystem – thus causing microbial trophic downgrading such as microbial diversity loss, which may impair ecosystem services.
• Theory-driven research may not only enhance the implications of these microbial interactions in microbial based eco-biotechnologies, but it may also help in the preservation of aquatic and agro-ecosystem health and productivity.
• Future research should combine ecological, environmental, and molecular genetic approaches to dissect the functional patterns of microbial multitrophic interactions to elucidate whether these are driven by species or functional trait diversity to develop successful strategies for sustainable agriculture and ecosystem services.

Multitrophic level microbial loop interactions mediated by protist predators, bacteria, and viruses drive eco- and agro-biotechnological processes such as bioremediation, wastewater treatment, plant growth promotion, and ecosystem functioning. To what extent these microbial interactions are context-dependent in performing biotechnological and ecosystem processes remains largely unstudied. Theory-driven research may advance the understanding of eco-evolutionary processes underlying the patterns and functioning of microbial interactions for successful development of microbe-based biotechnologies for real world applications. This could also be a great avenue to test the validity or limitations of ecology theory for managing diverse microbial resources in an era of altering microbial niches, multitrophic interactions, and microbial diversity loss caused by climate and land use changes.