Plant-Microbe Interactions Facing Environmental Challenge

In the past four decades, tremendous progress has been made in understanding how plants respond to microbial colonization and how microbial pathogens and symbionts reprogram plant cellular processes. In contrast, our knowledge of how environmental conditions impact plant-microbe interactions is less understood at the mechanistic level, as most molecular studies are performed under simple and static laboratory conditions. In this review, we highlight research that begins to shed light on the mechanisms by which environmental conditions influence diverse plant-pathogen, plant-symbiont, and plant-microbiota interactions. There is a great need to increase efforts in this important area of research in order to reach a systems-level understanding of plant-microbe interactions that are more reflective of what occurs in nature. In this review, we highlight studies that begin to shed light on how environmental conditions influence diverse plant-pathogen, plant-symbiont, and plant-microbiota interactions. Study of environmental effects on plant-microbe interactions has significant ramifications in understanding how global climatic change might shape future host-microbe interactions.