Editorial: Deciphering plant-microbiome interactions under abiotic stresses

Plant associated microbiome is key to supporting growth and development of plants. A range of microbial communities interacts with plants forming a complex relationship with plants which is important in driving the ecosystem while boosting plant productivity and health in nature. Plants must deal with different factors to flourish in an everchanging environment that implies stress on their development and growth. Such unfavourable conditions in the environment pose abiotic stresses, including heat, cold, drought, nutrient shortage, and toxic soil metals (aluminium, arsenate, and cadmium, among others). Salinity, temperature and drought stresses are some of the key environmental factors limiting agricultural productivity (Prasad et al., 2022) and vegetation geographical distribution, which inherently poses a threat to food security globally. The interaction of plants with their environment can be regulated with the help of microbiomes that can help the host plants to improve their adaptation to environmental stresses (Ali et al., 2022). For example, interactions of plant-microbiome can support the transformation and translocation of key soil nutrients in the plants and increase their availability alleviating nutrient stress. Additionally, plant microbiome acts as a protection of the host plant from pathogens through hydrolytic enzyme production, competition, and antibiosis. Plants deploy different strategies to define their microbiome to withstand stress and build resilience e.g., by amending their exudates that can support the growth of microflora to counter stress. This special issue compiles recent research on the interactions between microbes and plants subjected to abiotic stresses. We invited studies that use holistic meta-omics approaches including metagenomics, meta-transcriptomics, metabolomics, to assess the eco-physiological and molecular processes between microbial communities and the host plants.