Oak associated microbiome under insect decline

Surveys have shown, that insect abundance has declined in recent years. In this study, insect abundance was manipulated to analyse impacts on ecosystems. For this, Ecotron chambers were established with standard grassland communities and clonal oak sapling from Quercus robur clone DF159. At the end of one growing season, samples from leaves, roots and rhizosphere from the oaks were collected for amplicon sequencing of ITS and 16S.