Krishnaswamy Jayachandran

Krishnaswamy Jayachandran is a soil microbiologist/soil scientist by training. He has co-founded the Agroecology Program through significant funding from USDA to promote education, research, training and outreach activities for students pipelining and capacity building. He enjoys teaching soils and ecosystems, advanced soil resources analysis, agroecology, soil microbiology, soil biology and ecology of South Florida.

Research Areas

His research expertise are on studying soil physical, chemical and biological properties in relation to nutrient cycling and soil quality in wetland and upland systems. Utilizing microbiology as a central tool, we conduct research on microbial structural and functional diversity by traditional and molecular approaches, environmental influence on microbes structure and function, pesticides fate and transport, apply enrichment techniques to isolate and characterize pesticides degrading microbes, biodegradation processes in soil and water.

For the past few years, our laboratory is working on developing novel biological control strategies for the management of invasive exotic plant species in South Florida. In another novel project, we hypothesized to mitigate freshwater toxins as well as marine toxins by applying microbiological techniques. Our group also involved in biological energy production such as biodiesel and hydrogen through plants and microorganisms. His old expertise on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and plant growth promoting rhizobacteria, their interactions with plants, and significant role in conservation/restoration measures for natural and agricultural systems continues.