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As different plant species support different soil communities, assessment of climate change impacts on soil communities must consider how these impacts depend on the vegetation. We investigate soil community responses to global change under different co-occurring plant species.

In a heathland FACE-experiment, we modelled projected global changes by increasing atmospheric CO₂ concentration (to 510 ppm) and soil temperature by 1 °C at 2 cm depth (with night-time reflectance curtains) and reducing summer precipitation for 2–5 weeks annually (with rain-out curtains). We assessed nematode community trophic composition and bacterial and fungal abundance in soil under the dominant plant species Calluna vulgaris and Deschampsia flexuosa in the spring, 10 months after the last experimental drought period …