Integrative Insights into Physiology, Nutrient Dynamics, and Multi-Omics Reveal Climate Stress Adaptation and Genomic...

Rhododendron species are valued for their ecological, horticultural, and cultural importance and are increasingly threatened by climate-related stresses, including drought, frost, extreme heat, and nutrient imbalance. Over the past decade, physiological, biochemical, and nutrient-based studies, combined with the rapid expansion of transcriptomic, proteomic, metabolomic, and emerging epigenomic datasets, have provided new insights into stress-responsive pathways in this genus. However, these findings remain unevenly distributed across species and stress types and are rarely integrated across biological scales or linked directly to whole-plant performance. This review critically synthesizes recent advances in nutrient dynamics, mycorrhizal associations, hormonal regulation, and omics-based molecular responses underlying climate stress adaptation in Rhododendron. By integrating physiological traits with multi-omics evidence, we identify conserved regulatory modules, key metabolic and redox pathways, and trade-offs between growth and stress tolerance. We further highlight major genomic and experimental limitations, including taxonomic bias, short-term experimental designs, incomplete genome resources, and limited functional validation of candidate genes. Finally, future research priorities are proposed that emphasize integrative multi-omics approaches, genome-enabled functional studies, and systems-level modelling to advance climate-resilient Rhododendron conservation and breeding strategies. This synthesis provides a framework for translating molecular insights into horticultural and ecological applications under ongoing climate change.