Characterization of microbial communities in Technosols constructed for industrial wastelands restoration

Dedication 2 I dedicate this dissertation to my family, who always motivated and encouraged me to fulfill my dreams, and especially…. to my mother for her unconditional love to my Father who is no more with us, but still live and walk beside us everyday, 'unseen, unheard, but always near, still loved, still missed…. Acknowledgements 3 Acknowledgements It is only just to mention the fact that it would not have been possible to write this Doctoral Thesis without the support and help of many good people around me, to only some of whom a particular mentioning is possible in this humble gratitude. First and foremost, I pay utmost gratitude to my supervisor Dr. Laurent Philippot, whose encouragement, and radiant guidance made this thesis a reality. He served as an inspiration to me as I hurdle all the obstacles in the completion of this research work. His undying efforts and experience paved my way through the difficult and tiresome path of research. Despite his tight schedules, he always provided me substantial guidance and valuable suggestions throughout my PhD, and never stopped inspiring me for hard work. Without his kind supervision my thesis would have remained just a dream for me. I would like to extend my heartiest gratitude to my co-supervisor Dr. Fabrice Martin-Laurent, for his dynamic and intellectual supervision. Indeed, it was an honor for me to work under his supervision. I am thankful to him for sharing his extensive experience and knowledge and appreciate his support throughout my time here. I am grateful for his keen interest in my research work and constructive suggestions which served as a beacon of guidance for me. I wish to extend my thanks to Dr. Philippe Lemanceau, director of Agroécologie (INRA, Dijon) for welcoming me and providing me with a great opportunity to work in this prestigious research laboratory. I express my feelings of most sincere gratitude and devout appreciations to all the jury members, Emile Benizri, Francis Douay, Jean Guzzo and Christophe Schwartz for taking out time from their busy schedules in accepting and evaluating my research work and for the comments and suggestions that will help to improve the quality of this work and also my approach towards the overall research work. I share the credit of my work with Jean Claude Germon, Aymé Spor and Romain Barnard for their thoughtful comments and valuable suggestions in the thesis write-up. I thank …