Plant Resilience Under Climate Change: Linking Chemodiversity and Genomic Adaptation

Plant ecology and evolutionary biology examine how plants respond to environmental change and persist across diverse ecosystems. Climate change is intensifying drought, salinity, heat, and other stresses, raising questions about how genetic variation and phytochemical diversity contribute to plant fitness and resilience. Plants produce specialized metabolites that support defense, reproduction, and ecological interactions, while their chemical profiles can shift with environmental conditions. Research integrating genomics and metabolomics has advanced understanding of the molecular basis of these responses, including in plants from arid and semi-arid regions. However, the complexity of multi-omics data and the context-dependent nature of plant responses make it difficult to identify robust predictors of resilience. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) offer ways to analyze complex datasets, but their application to connecting genetic architecture, phytochemical variation, and resilience across species and environments remains an important area for further investigation.This Research Topic aims to clarify how phytochemical diversity and genomic variation shape plant resilience under climate change. It will explore the ecological and functional roles of plant metabolites, examine environmentally induced changes in phytochemical profiles, and investigate the genetic and metabolic basis of stress tolerance. It will also consider how multi-omics integration and AI/ML can reveal patterns and support predictions of plant resilience across species, populations, and biomes, with particular attention to endemic plants in arid and semi-arid regions. These insights may help inform biodiversity conservation and sustainable ecosystem management.This Research Topic focuses on the relationships among plant chemodiversity, genomic adaptation, and resilience to climate-related stresses across diverse ecosystems, with particular interest in endemic species from arid and semi-arid regions. We welcome research articles and reviews addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:• Phytochemical diversity, profiling, and chemotaxonomy• Ecological and functional roles of plant specialized metabolites• Phytochemical plasticity and environmental influences on metabolite profiles• Genomic and metabolic bases of secondary metabolite variation• Endemic plant adaptations to arid and semi-arid environments• Genomic and biosynthetic pathways underlying stress-induced metabolite production• Chemotaxonomic and metabolomic biomarkers of adaptation and endemism• Multi-omics integration of genomic and phytochemical data for plant resilience• AI/ML-driven prediction of resilience from genomic and phytochemical variation• Chemodiversity-informed strategies for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem managementArticle types: Original Research, Review, Mini Review, and Perspective articles are welcome. Topic editors: Arbi Guetat, Mokhtar Guerfel, Yassine Yahia Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/86830/plant-resilience-under-climate-change-linking-chemodiversity-and-genomic-adaptation