Data from: Rapid responses of soil microorganisms improve plant fitness in novel environments

Global change is challenging plant and animal populations with novel
environmental conditions, including increased atmospheric CO2
concentrations, warmer temperatures, and altered precipitation regimes. In
some cases, contemporary or “rapid” evolution can ameliorate the effects
of global change. However, the direction and magnitude of evolutionary
responses may be contingent upon interactions with other community members
that also are experiencing novel environmental conditions. Here, we
examine plant adaptation to drought stress in a multigeneration experiment
that manipulated aboveground–belowground feedbacks between plants and soil
microbial communities. Although drought stress reduced plant growth and
accelerated plant phenologies, surprisingly, plant evolutionary responses
to drought were relatively weak. In contrast, plant fitness in both
drought and nondrought environments was linked strongly to the rapid
responses of soil microbial community structure to moisture manipulations.
Specifically, plants were most fit when their contemporary environmental
conditions (wet vs. dry soil) matched the historical environmental
conditions (wet vs. dry soil) of their associated microbial community.
Together, our findings suggest that, when faced with environmental change,
plants may not be limited to “adapt or migrate” strategies; instead, they
also may benefit from association with interacting species, especially
diverse soil microbial communities, that respond rapidly to environmental
change.