Climate change and the rising threat of Macrophomina phaseolina: implications for food security, food safety, and sustainable crop health management

Abstract Macrophomina phaseolina is a destructive soil-borne necrotrophic fungal pathogen that causes substantial yield losses in a wide range of economically important crops worldwide. Disease severity is strongly enhanced under drought, high temperature, and salinity stress, conditions that are becoming increasingly prevalent under current climate change scenarios. This review examines the interactions between climate-driven abiotic stress, host physiological regulation, and pathogen aggressiveness, highlighting how stress-induced disruptions in hormonal signalling, reactive oxygen species homeostasis, antioxidant defence systems, and plant metabolism collectively increase susceptibility to M. phaseolina . Recent advances in understanding pathogen virulence mechanisms, plant immune responses, and resistance-associated molecular pathways are synthesised together with emerging evidence from transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and comparative genomics. The review further evaluates current management strategies, including host resistance, biological control, plant growth-promoting microorganisms, stress priming, and integrated disease management, while discussing their limitations under field conditions. Emerging technologies such as precision agriculture, remote sensing, artificial intelligence-assisted disease forecasting, and multi-omics approaches are highlighted as promising tools for improving early diagnosis, risk prediction, and climate-resilient disease management. By integrating advances in plant physiology, molecular biology, and sustainable crop protection, this review provides a comprehensive framework for understanding M. phaseolina pathogenesis under changing environmental conditions. It identifies key research priorities to improve crop resilience and safeguard global food security.