**6. Applications of metagenomics in soil environment**

Soil habitats contain the greatest microbial diversity of all the other environments on earth. So far, metagenomic approaches able to scratch the surface of the genomic, metabolic and phylogenetic diversity stored in the soil metagenome. Being a most diverse and challenging environment, soil holds an unlimited resource for the discovery of novel genes, enzymes, natural products, bioactive compounds, and bioprocesses. Soil metagenomic methods, specifically isolation of soil DNA followed by construction and screening of clone libraries, enable to look at more complete picture of soil microbial communities and to better understand their interactions. This methodology is of great potential for use in the studies of soil microbial communities and their functional genes, and in the discovery of new biocatalysts for industry. The sustainable economic future of modern industrialized *Soil Metagenomics: Concepts and Applications DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.88958*

societies requires the development of novel molecules, enzymes, processes, products, and applications. Application of metagenomics in soil had helped many microbiologists for uncovering its huge potential by overcoming the need for culturing the microbes in pure form as well as capturing the unculturable ones. High-throughput and sensitive screening methods are employed to overcome the complexity of soil metagenome. In general, screening of soil metagenome libraries relies on metabolic activity (function-driven approach) or on nucleotide sequence (sequence driven approach) whichever is suitable and feasible. By employing one or combination of these methods, researchers can discover vast number of novel products of industrial or agricultural use.
