Environmental adaptation in wheat landraces: integrating physiological, molecular, and ecological mechanisms for climate-resilient agriculture

Abstract

Climate change poses an increasing threat to wheat production, particularly in arid and semi-arid regions where rising temperatures, water scarcity, soil degradation, and salinity interact to reduce crop productivity and stability. Wheat landraces constitute an invaluable reservoir of adaptive genetic diversity that has evolved through centuries of natural and farmer-mediated selection under resource-limited environments. This review provides a comprehensive synthesis of the mechanisms underlying environmental resilience in wheat landraces, integrating evidence across physiological, biochemical, hormonal, molecular, ecological, and agronomic scales within a single framework. It examines how coordinated adaptive strategies—including stress escape, avoidance, tolerance, and recovery—interact with root system architecture, rhizosphere processes, plant–microbe associations, and resource-use efficiency to enhance resilience under multiple abiotic stresses. Recent advances in genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, pangenomics, and multi-omics integration have substantially improved our understanding of the genetic and molecular basis of environmental adaptation, creating new opportunities for the identification and deployment of resilience-associated traits. The review further discusses how these discoveries are being translated into climate-smart wheat improvement through genome-wide association studies, marker-assisted and genomic selection, speed breeding, gene editing, and artificial intelligence-assisted phenotyping. In addition, sustainable agronomic management, conservation strategies, farmer participation, and policy frameworks are considered as complementary components supporting the effective utilization of wheat landraces. By integrating adaptive biology, modern breeding technologies, sustainable agronomy, and socio-economic perspectives, this review presents a comprehensive framework for conserving and utilizing wheat landrace diversity to accelerate the development of climate-resilient wheat cultivars and strengthen global food and nutritional security under increasingly unpredictable climatic conditions.