Research efforts that aim to mitigate the consequences of climate change must move beyond studies that examine individual species’ responses independent of other biotic factors. To date, documented species’ responses to climate change include geographic range and phenological shifts, local extinctions and outbreaks, and even rapid microevolution in a variety of organisms. However, variation within species and interactions across species can complicate the magnitude, rate and predictability of these responses. Furthermore, asynchronous responses within and across species likely will lead to shifts in species composition that could alter ecosystem processes and services. The complexities of the ecological consequences of climate change require that the next generation of climate change experiments and efforts strive to be more nuanced and diverse. This session aims to give an overview of approaches used to tackle this challenge. Presentations include recent case studies that together consider multiple climate scenarios, including extreme climatic events, and their interplay with genotypic variation and interactions across and within several trophic levels. This session takes an important step forward in our efforts to understand and mitigate the effects of climate change by highlighting recent studies that span multiple biomes, taxonomic groups and trophic levels.