Linking microbial function and remote sensing for understanding drylands

Drylands, covering over 40% of Earth's land surface, are expanding due to accelerating aridification and vegetation loss. Their microbial communities sustain essential processes such as carbon fixation, nitrogen cycling, and trace gas regulation; yet they remain largely invisible to global models. While microbiome studies reveal mechanistic details at local scales, environmental monitoring requires spatial continuity. We argue that advances in remote sensing, with its increasing resolutions, now allow microbial processes to be observed, scaled, and modeled across regions. Linking omics and spectral data can reveal microbial 'sentinels' of ecosystem change, transforming microbial ecology into a spatially predictive science. This integration provides a foundation for early-warning systems of biodiversity loss and land degradation, positioning microbes as measurable actors in Earth system dynamics