The complexity of soils reaches from the ecosystem scale down to individual micro-aggregates and primary soil particles. Large-scale processes (e.g. C cycling) are mainly driven by micro-scale interactions between roots, microbiota, organic matter, and mineral particles. The spatial arrangement of these components as well as the activity of biotic participants induces strong physico-chemical gradients that make soil microenvironments highly dynamic systems.
The interlinked multicomponent complexity of soil microenvironments requires conceptual and experimental approaches capable of resolving processes on a wide range of scales (cm - sub μm). This oral session aims to demonstrate the current progress in analyzing biotic and/or abiotic processes in soil microenvironments with a special focus on imaging techniques. Contributions that present state-of-the-art methods to localize, monitor, and quantify gradients in dynamic environments (e.g. rhizosphere) in situ are especially appreciated.