Book excerpt: The increasing use and the continuous development of pesticides are required to maintain sufficient global food production. The pesticide residues and their biotic and abiotic breakdown products may be harmful to the environment and may leach into waterways, thus it is crucial that the interactions of pesticides with microorganisms are deeply understood at all levels. Pesticides reach the soil via direct and indirect routes. The fate of the pesticides in the soil is affected by chemical, physical and microbiological factors. Microbial degradation of pesticides in soil is possible owing to the diverse metabolic capabilities of the microorganisms present, thus indigenous microbes act as biocatalysts for the remediation of the pesticides from the environment. The research topic will cover novel insights into microbial pesticide degradation with specific attention to the microbe-pesticide interactions in soil. To date researchers have focused on the degradation of pesticides using indigenous microbes with different degradation rate. There is scant information about the degradation intermediates, metabolic pathways, enzymes and complete set of factors involved into the microbes inhabiting into the pesticides contaminated soil. Therefore this Research Topic aims to contribute to the understanding of the role of microbes in pesticide degradation in soil. Since pesticide exposure may result in stress responses in the microbial population of the soil, there is also a need to know about the impact of pesticides on the microbial cell structure, membrane transporters, cellular content, metabolic pathways and gene expression. We are interested in reports of novel metabolic pathways, expression of the key genes in response to pesticide exposure and the changes in microbial physiology caused by pesticide exposure. The removal of the pesticides from the soil requires smart microbial methods that can reduce the pesticides concentration in a short time. The development of the smart bioremediation methods includes the direct application of the potential screened microbial strains and their enzymes. The immobilized microbial strains and their enzymes can be used for the rapid removal of the toxic pesticides from the soil environment. In addition, engineering of the microbial consortia can be developed as the potential smart bioremediation tool. Papers on single isolates or microbial communities are welcome as are reports of novel genes, enzymes or metabolites that might be used as markers of soil contamination. We would especially welcome manuscripts describing the application and development of smart soil bioremediation approaches that could be beneficial for the treatment of large scale contaminated agricultural and industrial soils. The research topic is of immediate interest to scientists and policy-makers and Frontiers in Microbiology is an ideal forum for a collection of novel, high-impact reports. The following themes are welcomes but not limited to: • Novel advancements into the microbe-pesticide interactions to clean the pesticide contaminated soil • High throughput screening of the potential bacterial, fungi and algae strains for the removal of pesticides from the contaminated soil • Smart soil bioremediation using indigenous microbial cultures and their purified enzymes • Microbial enzymes a smart tool for bioremediation of the soil • Engineering of the microbial consortia for the complete pesticides removal and resource recovery