Effects of warming and reduced rainfall on the abundances and composition of soil fungal communities across seasons

To better understand how climate-induced shifts in seasonality will impact soil fungal community composition and production, we used a sequential hyphal ingrowth sandbag approach in a long-term climate change experiment in Minnesota, USA with factorial warming (+3.4C) and growing season rainfall reduction (30%). We quantified fungal mycelium abundance per season across warming and rainfall treatments using quantitative PCR and assessed fungal community composition via high-throughput sequencing.