Soil fungi remain active and invest in storage compounds during drought independent of future climate conditions

Microbial growth is central to soil carbon cycling. However, how microbial communities grow under climate change is still largely unexplored. Here we use a unique field experiment simulating future climate conditions (increased atmospheric CO 2 and temperature) and drought concomitantly and investigate impacts on soil microbial activity. We trace 2 H or 18 O applied via water-vapor exchange into membrane (and storage) fatty acids or DNA, respectively, to assess community- and group-level adjustments in soil microbial physiology (replication, storage product synthesis, and carbon use efficiency). We show that, while bacterial growth decreases by half during drought, fungal growth remains stable, demonstrating a remarkable resistance against soil moisture changes. In addition, fungal investment into storage triglycerides increases more than five-fold under drought. Community-level carbon use efficiency (the balance between anabolism and catabolism) is unaffected by drought but decreases in future climate conditions, favoring catabolism. Our results highlight that accounting for different microbial growth strategies can foster our understanding of soil microbial contributions to carbon cycling and feedback on the climate system. How climate change will impact microbial community growth is unclear. Here, the authors use a field experiment with varying global change factors, finding fungal growth more drought-resistant than microbial growth and overall changes in bacterial growth strategies.