Soil Microbiome-Mediated Nutrient Resilience: Rhizosphere Interactions for Plant Nutrition and Food Quality Under Climate Stress

Climate change is disrupting plant nutrition by challenging nutrient uptake, metabolism, and storage, with direct consequences for food safety and quality. Elevated CO₂, fluctuating temperatures, drought, and irregular precipitation all alter the physiological processes that govern nutrient acquisition and transport — but plants do not manage these processes alone. The soil microbiome and rhizosphere community play a central, often underappreciated role in buffering plants against these stressors, mediating nutrient availability, uptake efficiency, and stress signaling. Despite growing recognition that plant-microbe interactions shape crop resilience, the mechanisms by which microbial communities sustain nutrient dynamics and food quality under climate stress remain poorly understood.This Research Topic focuses on the soil microbiome and rhizosphere interactions as the mechanistic driver of nutrient resilience under climate stress — distinct from purely agronomic or genetic/breeding approaches. We aim to advance mechanistic understanding of how beneficial microorganisms (rhizobacteria, mycorrhizal fungi, biocontrol agents, and other rhizosphere symbionts) support nutrient acquisition, transport, and metabolism in climate-stressed plants, and how these interactions translate into measurable outcomes for crop resilience and food nutritional quality.We invite original research articles, reviews, perspectives, and case studies that advance mechanistic understanding of soil microbiome- and rhizosphere-mediated nutrient resilience, distinguishing this Research Topic from collections centered on purely agronomic practices or plant genetic/breeding approaches to climate-resilient nutrition.We welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:- Mechanisms by which rhizosphere microbial communities enhance nutrient uptake, transport, and storage under climate stress (drought, heat, elevated CO₂, altered precipitation).- Mycorrhizal and rhizobacterial contributions to micronutrient acquisition and biofortification under stress conditions.- Microbiome-mediated stress signaling and its downstream effects on nutritional quality, safety, texture, and bioactive compound content.- Plant-microbe-soil feedback loops and their role in sustaining nutrient cycling under changing climate conditions.- Biocontrol and beneficial microorganism applications for maintaining crop nutritional integrity under climate stress.- Methods for characterizing and validating microbiome contributions to plant nutritional and functional properties (e.g., metagenomics, isotope tracing, controlled inoculation studies).- Engineering or managing rhizosphere communities (synthetic microbial consortia, biofertilizers) as a climate-adaptive strategy for nutrient resilience. Topic editors: Zaid Khan, Lijuan Xie, Daniel Menezes Blackburn, Amitava Rakshit Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/75433/soil-microbiome-mediated-nutrient-resilience-rhizosphere-interactions-for-plant-nutrition-and-food-quality-under-climate-stress