Plant-Microbiota Interactions in Abiotic Stress Environments

Abiotic stress adversely affects cellular homeostasis and ultimately impairs plant growth, posing a serious threat to agriculture. Climate change modeling predicts increasing occurrences of abiotic stresses such as drought and extreme temperature, resulting in decreasing the yields of major crops such as rice, wheat, and maize, which endangers food security for human populations. Plants are associated with diverse and taxonomically structured microbial communities that are called the plant microbiota. Plant microbiota often assist plant growth and abiotic stress tolerance by providing water and nutrients to plants and modulating plant metabolism and physiology and, thus, offer the potential to increase crop production under abiotic stress. In this review, we summarize recent progress on how abiotic stress affects plants, microbiota, plant-microbe interactions, and microbe-microbe interactions, and how microbes affect plant metabolism and physiology under abiotic stress conditions, with a focus on drought, salt, and temperature stress. We also discuss important steps to utilize plant microbiota in agriculture under abiotic stress.

Automated summary

Abiotic stress negatively affects plant growth, posing a threat to agriculture and food security. The plant microbiota, which is associated with plants, can enhance plant growth and abiotic stress tolerance, offering potential for increased crop production. This review summarizes recent progress on the impact of abiotic stress on plants, microbiota, and plant-microbe interactions, as well as the utilization of plant microbiota in agriculture under abiotic stress conditions.