Recent progress in understanding the ecology and molecular genetics of soil mineral weathering bacteria

Mineral weathering bacteria play essential roles in nutrient cycling and plant nutrition. However, we are far from having a comprehensive view of the factors regulating their distribution and the molecular mechanisms involved. In this review, we highlight the extrinsic factors (i.e., nutrient availability, carbon source) and the intrinsic properties of minerals explaining the distribution and functioning of these functional communities. We also present and discuss the progress made in understanding the molecular mechanisms and genes that are used by bacteria during the mineral weathering process, or regulated during their interaction with minerals, that have been recently unraveled by omics approaches. Environmental distribution and effectiveness of mineral weathering bacterial communities depend on nutrient availability, the C sources, and the type of mineral.Mineral weathering ability is conserved in some taxa and is very variable in others.Bacteria engage a large set of molecular mechanisms related to nutrient access and transport during the mineral weathering process.Omics highlighted differential regulation of molecular mechanisms involved in acidification and iron acquisition according to nutrient availability and mineral presence.