Abiotic stresses, including nutrient deficiencies, drought, heavy metals, and salinity, profoundly impact crop productivity and food security (Fig.1). Drought is a combined and complex stress where plants modify their physiology so that they can adapt to the water-scarce environment, including root architecture changes, stomatal closure, decrease of photosynthesis, reduction of germination rate, shortening the time for reproduction, and change in composition and amount of root exudates (Cantó et al., 2020; Farooq et al. 2012; Gupta et al. 2020; Rabbi et al. 2018). Drought also affects microbiome activity, physiology, and habitat, increasing osmotic compound buildup and sporulation rate, decreasing enzymatic activities, and causing nutrient cycling and habitat change. These can also lead to changes in microbial community compositions (Aamir et al., 2019; Cantó et al., 2020; Jansson and Hofmockel, 2020; Morcillo and Manzanera, 2021; Naylor and Coleman-Derr, 2018; Schimel, 2018).