Plant–Microbiome Interactions for Environmental Resilience: Rhizosphere Ecology, Climate Adaptation and Ecosystem Sustainability

Plants modify the biotic and abiotic properties of the soil in which they grow, and these modifications subsequently alter the performance of the same or other plant species. Such plant–soil feedbacks, which operate largely through the soil microbiome, have become central to explanations of plant coexistence, invasion, succession and the persistence of soil carbon. Climate change now alters every component of this loop simultaneously, yet the literature remains fragmented among community ecology, microbial ecology and biogeochemistry, and existing reviews rarely evaluate whether evidence from these fields can be combined to predict the functioning of whole ecosystems. This critical narrative review examines how drought, altered precipitation, warming, elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide and nitrogen enrichment reshape plant–soil–microbiome feedbacks, and how those changes propagate to plant diversity, carbon and nitrogen cycling, and ecosystem multifunctionality. Literature was identified through structured searches of multidisciplinary scholarly indexes, supplemented by citation tracking, and was appraised for design, scale, duration and consistency with independent evidence. The synthesis indicates that drought frequently shifts feedbacks, although the direction of change depends on plant functional group, mycorrhizal association, drought history and whether experiments are conducted in the field or under controlled conditions. Evidence for warming effects on feedbacks is weaker and less consistent than evidence for warming effects on microbial respiration and diversity. Mycorrhizal type emerges as the most transferable organising axis, linking feedback direction, nutrient economies and carbon storage. Positive associations between soil biodiversity and multifunctionality are well documented in observational surveys, but their causal basis, their stability under multiple simultaneous stressors and their dependence on aridity remain unresolved. The dominant constraints are short experimental duration, reliance on glasshouse bioassays, inconsistent feedback metrics and a geographical concentration of studies in temperate grasslands. Priorities include long-term field experiments with factorial climate treatments, reciprocal inoculation along climatic gradients, standardised feedback and multifunctionality metrics, and process-based models that represent microbial physiology explicitly. Current evidence supports treating plant–soil–microbiome feedbacks as a conditional, rather than universal, regulator of ecosystem responses to climate change.