Editorial: Microscale Modelling of Soil Processes: Recent Advances, Challenges, and the Path Ahead

International audience

English. Editorial on the Research Topic Microscale Modelling of Soil Processes: Recent Advances, Challenges, and the Path Ahead Over the last 15 years, increasing numbers of researchers have come to recognize that in order to understand many soil processes, and be able to predict their future evolution, especially under the very unsteady conditions resulting from climate change, the traditional macroscopic approach would not do, and a microscopic perspective needs to be adopted instead (e.g., Smercina et al., 2021). This conclusion has been particularly clear for soil processes involving microorganisms. Several key studies have demonstrated that to better understand what controls the growth and activity of microorganisms, one needed to make observations at their scale, i.e., with a resolution of at most a few microns, and it is anticipated that even much smaller resolutions than that will need to be considered when we shall try to understand what controls the behavior of viruses (e.g., bacteriophages) in soil environments. The progressive shift in emphasis from the macroscale to the microscale over the last few years has been rendered possible by tremendous technological advances, such as the advent of dedicated table-top X-ray computed tomography scanners, and the development of various synchrotron-based techniques (such µXRF or NEXAFS) as well as NanoSIMS. Experimental research in this field has been very active and is currently undergoing a major expansion around the world, in particular in work that combines several different observation techniques (e.g.,