Horticultural plants are constantly exposed to a diverse range of abiotic and biotic stresses. The stress-responsive microbiome, a dynamic network of bacteria, fungi, and archaea, plays pivotal roles in enhancing plant resilience through nutrient acquisition, phytohormone regulation, and pathogen suppression. For instance, mycorrhizal fungi are well-known to form symbiotic relationships with host plants, providing minerals, especially phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) in exchange for plant photosynthetically fixed carbon sources (e.g., lipids and sugars), thereby benefiting the nutrient uptake and stress tolerance of plants. Advances in multi-omics and bioinformatics have enabled deeper investigations into the interactions between microbes and their hosts for the development of sustainable agriculture.

In this Research Topic, we aim to collect manuscripts covering the advanced knowledge, perspectives, and outlooks on the study of microbial diversity under stress, functional mechanisms, and innovative strategies for microbiome engineering. Although the complex interactions involving plants, fungi, and bacteria hold great potential to sustain the health of plants by enhancing plant-growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) and/or suppressing pathogens, our knowledge of their dynamic variations, unique functions, molecular mechanisms, and influencing factors is still very limited. Thus, it is urgent to identify more novel and valuable microbes for horticultural plant cultivation. Recently developed technologies prompted us to understand the function and mechanism of microbes to promote horticultural plant growth and resilience against both abiotic and biotic stresses. Future research mainly focuses on how the cross-kingdom interactions between plants, fungi, and bacteria regulate nutrient exchange across plant-fungi/bacteria continuum, which is key to unlocking sustainable agricultural strategies in the changing world.

We welcome submissions of original research papers, reviews, methods and perspectives related, but not limited, to the following topics:

1) Microbial community structure and dynamics (rhizospheric microorganism and endophyte);
2) Discovery and evaluation of functional microorganisms;
3) Synthetic microbial consortia;
4) Strategies of horticultural plants-microbes partnerships in improving plant resilience to abiotic (e.g., drought, waterlogging, or metal pollution) and biotic (e.g., pathogens or viruses) stresses;
5) Field-scale applications of PGPR (plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria) for sustainable agriculture;

Please note that Frontiers in Microbiology does not consider descriptive studies of microbial communities solely based on amplicon sequencing profiles (e.g., 16S rRNA and ITS) unless an explicit hypothesis and experimentation are made and provide insight into the microbial process and strategy being studied.

Are you interested in contributing a manuscript to this Research Topic?

Stress-Responsive Microbiome of Horticultural Plants: Diversity, Functions, and Application Prospects