The impact of elevated temperature and drought on the ecology and evolution of plant-soil microbe interactions

1. Climate change is shifting the distribution of species, and may have a profound impact on the ecology and evolution of species interactions. However, we know little about the impact of increasing temperature and changing rainfall patterns on the interactions between plants and their beneficial and antagonistic root symbionts.

2. Here, we used a reciprocal multifactorial growth chamber experiment with seeds and soil microbial communities from three origins to investigate the impact of temperature and soil moisture on the growth, arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal colonization, and root-associated fungal community of a perennial herb. Moreover, we tested whether plants and AM fungi performed better or worse when plants were grown with their local soil biota, e.g. due to plant adaptation or changes in the genetic or species composition of the soil microbial community.

3. Temperature and soil moisture generally increased plant growth, whereas temperature but not soil moisture, incr...