Integrating Environmental Data and Genomic Resources for Accelerated Plant Adaptation and Crop Improvement

Climate change, land degradation, and shifting agricultural zones are intensifying the need for crops that can thrive under increasingly variable and extreme environmental conditions. Traditional breeding approaches, while foundational, are often too slow to meet the pace of these challenges. Recent advances in envirotyping, environmental association analysis (EAA), and germplasm mining strategies such as the Focused Identification of Germplasm Strategy (FIGS) offer powerful tools to dissect gene–environment interactions and guide precision breeding. These integrative approaches allow researchers to better understand how plants respond to diverse environmental pressures and use that knowledge to develop resilient cultivars tailored to specific agroecological contexts. This Research Topic seeks to highlight the convergence of environmental data and genomic resources as a transformative strategy for crop improvement.

The availability of large-scale genomic and environmental datasets—enabled by remote sensing, IoT technologies, and global data-sharing initiatives—has created unprecedented opportunities for integrative research. By combining these data streams, researchers can reveal novel adaptive mechanisms, identify genetic variants associated with environmental resilience, and enable predictive modeling of genotype performance across diverse conditions. This Research Topic aims to bring together interdisciplinary contributions that span environmental science, genomics, data science, and plant breeding. We seek to showcase methodological advances, case studies, and computational tools that support the development of crops better adapted to current and future environmental challenges. The ultimate goal is to catalyze a new era of integrative plant science—where environmental data and genomic insights converge to drive sustainable and context-aware crop improvement.

We welcome manuscripts in the form of original research, reviews, mini-reviews, and methods papers that explore the integration of environmental data and genomic resources for crop adaptation and improvement. Topics of interest include:

• Environmental Data Innovations: Remote sensing, sensor networks, and in-situ platforms for high-resolution environmental monitoring

• Data Integration and Interoperability: Techniques for multi-scale environmental profiling, data fusion, and standardized protocols for data sharing

• Gene–Environment Interaction Analysis: Advanced statistical and machine learning approaches for environmental association analysis (EAA), genome-wide association studies (GWAS), and their integration with envirotyping and phenomic data

• Germplasm Utilization Strategies: Predictive modeling, Focused Identification of Germplasm Strategy (FIGS), and other data-driven approaches to identify superior genotypes

• Breeding Program Design: Incorporation of environmental data into breeding pipelines to enhance adaptation and resilience

• Computational Tools and Platforms: Development of bioinformatics pipelines, visualization tools, and data management solutions for large-scale breeding and environmental datasets

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Envirotyping, Gene–environment interactions, Integrative crop improvement, Germplasm mining

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.