Interactions between plant and microbial communities in peatlands are complex, yet pivotal for the functioning of these carbon-dense ecosystems. Our understanding of how climate change affects important peatland processes such as carbon dynamics is often based on assumed fixed relationships between above-and belowground communities. Our work shows that the turnover in plant–microbial interactions along enviro–climatic gradients is faster than species turnover within both communities, resulting in a mismatch in alpha diversity between plant and microbial communities. Notably, warming and increased nutrient deposition weakens plant–microbe linkages, which may consequentially decrease the overall robustness of peatland ecosystem processes to future anthropogenic pressures.

Date: Data collection: summer 2010

Date Submitted: 2021-03-03