Evaluation of the primary methods used to study plant and microbial responses to climate change in the context of five common barriers to broad inference.

Common methods (rows) were qualitatively evaluated for the incorporation of each barrier (columns); “explicit” indicates that the method inherently incorporates or addresses the barrier, “possible” indicates that it is possible for the method to incorporate or address the barrier based on the experimental design, “no” indicates that, to our knowledge, the method cannot incorporate or address the barrier. References were chosen based on applicability, impact, and novelty.