Responses of drought-adapted plants and soil microbial communities to drought conditions in plant-soil microcosms

This dataset contains information on the performance of soil microbial communities (from field soil washes), soil synthetic microbial populations (from isolates within a single bacterial genus) and plants each originating from either drought and control long-term climate treatments at the Buxton Climate Change Impacts Lab (BCCIL), in a microcosm experiment. Plant and microbe provenance were manipulated to effect different combinations of climate ancestry in different microcosm pots. In addition, a factorial watering treatment (control or drought treatment) was applied. Isolates of Pseudomonas used to found experimental populations of soil microbes had been sampled from the roots of Festuca ovina in the control and drought treatments at BCCIL.

Variables measured included soil respiration, plant traits, plant available soil nutrients, soil enzyme activities, soil respiration responses to substrate addition (in a substrate utilisation profiling assay), and soil respiration responses to drought (in a substrate utilisation profiling assay).