Resilience and Adaptation in Desert Ecosystems: Unveiling Microbial Legacies and Plant Functional Trait Coordination Under Climate Change

Desert ecosystems, which cover more than one-third of Earth's land surface, are experiencing intensifying pressures from land-use disturbances and climate change that threaten their stability and biodiversity. Yet despite their global extent and ecological importance, deserts remain among the least studied biomes, particularly with respect to the belowground processes that sustain productivity, biogeochemical cycling, and long-term ecosystem resilience. Most prior work has focused on vegetation, leaving the roles of soil microbiomes and plant functional trait coordination comparatively underexplored. This knowledge gap is significant because growing evidence shows that microbial dynamics and plant trait syndromes jointly regulate nutrient cycling, carbon stabilization, and drought recovery, potentially determining whether desert ecosystems cross critical thresholds under future climate scenarios. This review synthesizes recent advances in understanding the influence of microbial legacies (persistent effects of past environmental conditions) on ecosystem processes, and how desert plants adapt via coordinated traits that optimize water and nutrient use under extreme conditions. We propose a novel framework that integrates belowground microbial responses and aboveground plant trait strategies, highlighting their interactions and feedback loops in shaping desert ecosystem resilience. By explicitly linking these two domains, the review addresses a major knowledge gap in predicting dryland responses to intensifying climate extremes, offering a mechanistic foundation for improving ecological models and management strategies. This integrated perspective provides new insights into the mechanisms that underlie adaptation to climate stress and offers actionable pathways for conservation, restoration, and climate adaptation in desert landscapes. By bridging microbial ecology and trait-based plant science, this review contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of how desert ecosystems can persist and function in a rapidly changing world.