Functional resilience strategies for environmental destabilization of antagonistic yeast metabolite-mediated postharvest biocontrol management

The biocontrol activity of antagonistic yeasts is through multiple mechanisms, one of which is metabolite-mediated antagonism involving volatile organic compounds, killer toxins, lytic enzymes, organic acids, and other bioactive compounds. However, the effectiveness of these yeasts in the management of postharvest diseases is affected by adverse environmental conditions such as preharvest climate drivers, postharvest storage microclimate, engineered preservation conditions, and supply-chain perturbations. These conditions may influence interactions between the yeasts, their metabolites, pathogens, and harvested products. Although some existing studies demonstrate that environmental conditions can affect yeast survival, colonization, metabolic activity, pathogen development, and postharvest nutritional quality, direct evidence simultaneously linking environmental stress, changes in yeast metabolite functionality, pathogen suppression, and preservation of nutritional value remains limited. This review therefore synthesizes evidence from various relevant studies to develop a functional resilience framework for yeast metabolite-mediated biocontrol. The framework takes resistance, recovery, persistence, stability, and functional redundancy as dimensions of resilience. The review also discusses stress preconditioning, protective delivery systems, responsive coatings, metabolite consortia, sensing technologies, and predictive approaches as potential strategies for promoting functional resilience. It also highlights integrated perturbation experiments, multi-omics, predictive validation, and assessment under postharvest storage and supply-chain conditions for future considerations.