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Abstract
The climate crisis poses an unparalleled threat to Earth's biota and the meticulously calibrated habitats that have shaped their evolution. Microorganisms are among the most vulnerable parts of this global problem, yet they are also among the most important ones that people do not understand. Climate-driven stressors threaten not only the survival of microbes but also the functional stability of the ecosystems they support, including their critical symbiotic relationships with hosts and their contributions to biogeochemical cycling. Microbial communities exist along a spectrum of human impact, ranging from untouched wilderness to highly managed landscapes and densely populated urban areas. These communities form intricate, multi-scale feedback loops that function at both the molecular and ecosystem levels. These interconnected dynamics make it very hard to predict how microbes will respond to climate change and how those changes will affect the health of the planet. In this article, we summarize what we know about how climate change affects the dynamics of microbes and microbiomes that are important to human, plant, and ecosystem health. In each domain, we first talk about what we know about how climate and microbes interact and how this affects their functions. Next, we identify high-priority research frontiers by highlighting promising areas that need thorough testing and integration with other fields. Lastly, we suggest a single framework for microbial ecology that connects fields that have been kept separate in the past. This framework focuses on the need for research across systems and the potential of microbiome-informed strategies as climate-resilient interventions. This perspective promotes a comprehensive strategy for preserving the microbial underpinnings of planetary health amid rapid climate change, drawing from environmental microbiology, host–microbe symbiosis, and Earth system science.