Global change-driven plant adaptive strategies and interspecific interaction networks: from molecular regulation to ecological management

Abstract

Global change drivers, including climate warming, elevated CO2, nitrogen deposition, extreme climate events, heavy metal pollution, and biological invasions, interact in complex ways to reconfigure terrestrial ecosystems. This review synthesizes recent advances to develop a framework linking plant molecular responses to ecosystem management. We first examine how abiotic stressors reshape plant physiology and traits through defense signaling, secondary metabolite synthesis, and life-history adjustments. We then analyze how these plant-level changes cascade upward to restructure interspecific networks, focusing on plant-insect and plant-microbe dynamics mediated by altered chemical communication and resource competition. The mediating role of soil biogeochemistry and plant-soil feedback is also considered. Building on this mechanistic understanding, we propose that global change does not uniformly facilitate plant invasion; rather, it differentially filters invasive lineages along three axes: resource availability (elevated CO2, nitrogen deposition), disturbance regime (extreme drought-rewetting, warming amplitude), and life-history strategy (annual vs. perennial, sexual vs. clonal). Seed functional traits and climate-driven shifts in reproductive phenology operate as the upstream drivers that preconfigure interspecific network structure. Finally, we outline a management framework organized around four invader mechanism types: resource-acquisitive, plasticity-dependent under warming, drought-rewetting adapted, and microbiome-dependent, each matched with empirically validated, scenario-specific interventions. Integrating functional trait data with species distribution models enables quantitative forecasting of distribution shifts and identification of ecologically vulnerable zones. Such predictive outputs provide the data basis for full-cycle ecological management, from risk warning to targeted habitat regulation, offering a scientific foundation for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem restoration under global change.