Provenance Legacies Override Species Effects in Shaping Oak Rhizosphere Microbiomes and Metabolomes
Given the increasing threat of drought extremes driven by climate change, selecting drought-tolerant trees is crucial for future forest resilience. However, since the role of tree-microbial associations for this key trait remains largely unclear, the goal of this study was to investigate how geographic origin, tree species (Quercus robur and Q. petraea), and intrinsic water-use efficiency (iWUE) shape the rhizosphere microbiome and metabolome of oaks. The relevance of these findings lies in emphasizing the need for provenance-aware selection and microbiome-informed assisted migration as strategies to increase forest drought resilience under global climate change.