My research is funded by the NSF GRFP (awarded in 2020) and aims to understand the role of bottom-up and top-down effects of climate change on plant communities, with a focus on soil microbial community interactions with plants. By leveraging the two projects described below, I will collect samples and use experiments to quantify the direct and indirect effects of climate warming, insect herbivory, and drought on soil biota-plant-herbivore interactions. I seek to answer the following questions: (1) How does the composition and structure of a soil microbial community differ in the presence and absence of warming temperatures, insect herbivores, and drought? And (2) What is the soil community’s influence on plant traits, stress responses and insect preferences in the presence or absence of warming, insect herbivory, and drought?