Unearthing the impact of climate change: Investigating the responses of plant-microbiomes-soil ecosystems to future climates – EcosoilChange

Understanding how ecosystems respond to and influence climate change is crucial as environments worldwide are changing rapidly, threatening biodiversity. Classical approaches to studying ecosystems have overlooked the interaction between soil, microbial communities, and plant communities. The global hypothesis suggests that ecosystem functioning, microbial communities, and plant populations are shaped by soil parameters, global climate conditions, and extreme climatic events. To simulate future climates, it is necessary to manipulate multiple environmental drivers simultaneously. Ecotrons offer an unprecedented opportunity to investigate the response of complex ecosystems to future climate change. This project proposes a multi-pronged approach using ecotron chambers, labelling isotopic techniques, microbial metagenomics, and population genomics methods to assess the impact of future climate change on ecosystem structure and processes. The study aims to investigate the impact of soil parameters, climatic scenarios and extreme events on plant-microbiome-soil ecosystems. We will first run field experiments on nine distinct soils based on soil pH, clay content, and organic matter content. Then, we will run ecotron experiments with different realistic present and future scenarios, as well as several etreme events (heatwave, drought, floodings). We will use a large range of techniques to evaluate the resilience of plant and microbial populations to these different conditions. The ultimate goal is to identify the ecological factors most largely affected by climate change effects and soil properties.