OOS 64

The Soil Frontier: Understanding How Belowground Processes Drive Ecosystem Responses to Climate Change

Over the past 25 years, some of the most exciting frontiers in ecology have been related to soils, as methodological advances have facilitated breaking open “the soil black box” to document patterns of microbial diversity and function. Per unit area, soils harbor the greatest biological and functional diversity on earth, largely in fungi and bacteria. Microbial activities directly determine greenhouse gas emissions and sequestration, and also indirectly regulate ecosystem feedbacks by influencing plant responses to changing environmental conditions. Climate change is currently altering these functions, highlighting the pressing need for a better mechanistic understanding of the links between microbial communities and soil processes. We have only scratched the surface of how soil microbial communities influence ecosystem function, and new insights continue to arise due to the development of new techniques, greater global sampling efforts, and incorporation of microbes into experimental designs and models. In this session, speakers will highlight how historical and recent progress in this field has impacted current thinking, consider underappreciated ecological and evolutionary mechanisms, incorporate a cross-scale vision, and reflect on the challenges that must be met to advance this ecological frontier.