Plant Disease Biology: Integrating Molecular, Ecological and Management Perspectives

ABSTRACT Plant diseases remain a major constraint on global food security and ecosystem stability, yet plant disease biology has long been shaped by fragmented and reductionist frameworks. Classical concepts, such as the disease triangle, have provided valuable heuristic guidance but are increasingly insufficient to capture the dynamic, multiscale and adaptive nature of disease systems under real‐world conditions. This review critically examines plant disease biology from an integrative perspective that connects molecular mechanisms, ecological dynamics, soil processes and management strategies. At the molecular scale, advances in plant immunity, pathogen effector biology and genomic plasticity have expanded mechanistic understanding of host–pathogen interactions, although predictive capacity often declines beyond controlled environments. Ecological perspectives instead frame disease as an emergent property arising from interactions among host populations, microbial communities, environmental heterogeneity and climate variability, challenging linear and deterministic interpretations of disease causation. Soil–plant–microorganism interactions further highlight the regulatory role of biologically active soils, where microbial diversity, suppressive communities and rhizosphere processes influence disease expression. Management practices interact with these molecular and ecological mechanisms, generating evolutionary and ecological feedbacks that shape long‐term disease dynamics, rendering strategies based solely on pathogen suppression increasingly inadequate. By synthesizing recent conceptual and empirical advances, this review advocates a shift toward systems‐based and ecologically grounded approaches emphasizing regulation, resilience and adaptive management. We propose a framework in which plant diseases are understood as emergent phenomena of complex adaptive systems, improving predictive capacity and supporting sustainable disease management under environmental change and agricultural intensification.