Shape, Stress, and Disease: Morphological Biomarkers Across Taxa and Ecosystems in a Changing World.

Environmental stressors, including climate change, habitat fragmentation, pollution, agricultural intensification, and urbanization, are changing the physical forms of organisms across all major groups of life. These morphological changes can act as early-warning signals for disease outbreaks, crop failure, and ecosystem breakdown. Despite this potential, a clear gap remains: quantitative methods for measuring biological shape (such as geometric morphometrics, CT scanning, histology, and AI-based image analysis) are rarely applied within parasitology, plant stress research, pest ecology, or disease epidemiology. Standard One Health approaches do not yet treat shape as a measurable health indicator. This Research Topic aims to bridge that gap. We invite Original Research, Reviews, and Methods papers that connect morphological analysis with ecology, disease, and environmental science. We are particularly interested in work covering the following themes: 1. Measuring shape change under stress- studies using geometric morphometrics, imaging, histology, or computational tools to quantify morphological responses to environmental pressure in any organism. 2. Agricultural pests and crop health- research linking pest population dynamics, crop stress, and food security, especially where changes in pest morphology signal emerging threats. 3. Disease vectors and parasite spread- studies examining how vector or parasite body form changes with shifting climates or habitats, and what this means for disease transmission. 4. Physiological responses across taxa- work documenting morphological plasticity as a marker of resilience or vulnerability in plants, animals, or humans under environmental stress. 5. Nature-based solutions- research on botanical interventions, biological pest control, or ecosystem restoration that reduces stress-driven morphological change or its downstream effects. Topic editors: Mohamed Amine Fares, Khalid Raza, Yasser M Shabana Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/82935/shape-stress-and-disease-morphological-biomarkers-across-taxa-and-ecosystems-in-a-changing-world