Xiong et al. report the most dominant human bacterial pathogens and their environmental drivers in global soils. Many dominant pathogens show negative associations with soil microbial diversity and po...

Soil is a critical ecological contributor to plant and animal health. In this issue of Cell Host & Microbe, Xiong et al. use global metagenomic data to show that human pathogens linked to diseases lik...

A global study of 1602 soil samples identifies dominant bacterial plant pathogens and reveals microbial traits, soil carbon and climate that promote natural suppression, while climate change may incre...

Xiong et al. report the most dominant human bacterial pathogens and their environmental drivers in global soils. Many dominant pathogens show negative associations with soil microbial diversity and po...

Nature Reviews Microbiology, Published online: 24 March 2026; doi:10.1038/s41579-026-01296-wIn this Review, the authors describe current knowledge of microbial phosphorus cycling in terrestrial ecosystems and discuss how microbial communities respond to environmental and anthropogenic pressures. They also propose the Microbial Phosphorus Adaptive Evolution Theory (MPAET) — a mechanistic framework linking persistent phosphorus limitation to evolutionary adaptations across cellular, genomic and community scales.

The impending US heat record is an alarming signal of how hot the planet is getting and how fast it’s happening.

In this Review, Singh and colleagues discuss the impacts of key climate extremes on soil-borne pathogens, plant microbiomes and host physiology that ultimately determine disease outcomes, as well as t...

In this Review, Singh and colleagues discuss the impacts of key climate extremes on soil-borne pathogens, plant microbiomes and host physiology that ultimately determine disease outcomes, as well as t...

Abstract. Microbial secondary metabolites have been recognized and utilized for nearly a century. Nevertheless, the eco-evolutionary mechanisms governing t

In this Review, Singh and colleagues discuss the impacts of key climate extremes on soil-borne pathogens, plant microbiomes and host physiology that ultimately determine disease outcomes, as well as t...

Plant diseases pose a great risk to global food security, and recent research indicates that pathogen pressures on plant productivity will substantially increase under ongoing climate change (that is, increasing CO2 levels and global warming). However, our mechanistic and predictive knowledge of the impacts of climate extremes, such as heatwaves and prolonged droughts, and their interaction with other climatic factors, on plant pathogens, hosts and microbiomes, remains largely unknown. This is an important knowledge gap that limits our ability to develop effective strategies to mitigate the socioeconomic impacts of climate change-induced plant disease outbreaks. This Review examines the impacts of key climate extremes on soil-borne pathogens, plant microbiomes and host physiology that ultimately determine disease outcomes. We explore evidence that suggests that the responses of pathogen–host–microbiome interactions to climate extremes may differ in many ways from those to long-term climate change. Climate extremes may increase the virulence and distribution of many pathogens, suppress certain plant immune responses, and weaken the core functions of host microbiomes within the disease triangle, thereby facilitating disease outbreaks. We propose an integrated pathway for harnessing microbiomes to address the critical challenges posed by climate extremes. These insights offer new approaches to mitigate disease risks by harnessing microbiomes and metabolites under climate extremes, with the potential to support climate-resilient and sustainable agricultural and natural ecosystems.