I've complained many times about silly experiments that slam some change into an environment - say, warmer temperatures - and conclude from the observed effects that x,y or z will happen in future in our warming world. Some are more careful.

Bradford, whose results appear in the early online edition of the journal Ecology Letters, said the finding helps resolve a long-standing debate about how unseen soil microbes respond to and influence global climate change. Other scientists have noted that the respiration of soil microbes returns to normal after a number of years under heated conditions, but offered competing explanations. Some argued that the microbes consumed so much of the available food under heated conditions that future levels of decomposition were reduced because of food scarcity. Others argued that soil microbes adapted to the changed environment and reduced their respiration accordingly.

Bradford and his team, which included researchers from the University of New Hampshire, the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Duke University and Colorado State University, found evidence to support both hypotheses and revealed a third, previously unaccounted for explanation: The abundance of soil microbes decreased under warm conditions. . .

Wallenstein pointed out that the study is among the first to demonstrate that microbes, like many plants and animals, can adapt relatively quickly to changes in climate. "This research presents a new challenge to scientists trying to predict effects of climate change on forest ecosystems because it shows that these soil microbial communities are very dynamic," Wallenstein said. "We cannot simply extrapolate from the short-term responses of soil microbes to climate change, since they may adapt over the longer-term."

The study still fails the laugh test since it didn't include elevated CO2 levels which are required to achieve the temperature increases on which the study is predicated, and that's not the only defect in realism. Still, it's a better study than others and may help with the design of even better experiments.

One often repeated but not widely understood factoid is worth emphasis.

"There is about two and a half times more carbon in the soil than there is in the atmosphere, and the concern right now is that a lot of that carbon is going to end up in the atmosphere"

There is some concern, but not really that much. The single most effective thing that we could do to keep soil carbon out of the atmosphere is to stop plowing the land to plant crops. No-till methods hugely reduce such carbon loss and have many other agronomic and environmental benefits but they are still not widely used. And, we could take active measures to increase soil carbon in addition to efforts to avoid loss of what is already there. Unfortunately, there is little political support for soil carbon issues since they don't advance any political agenda.

The results of the study also suggest that we might consider taking active measures to improve soil microbes for heat tolerance as well as other desirable traits. They clearly exist since temperatures vary widely on the planet now, providing lots of adaptation opportunities naturally, which might be identified or even enhanced. The idea of relocating plants and animals to new ranges as climate changes is already being given consideration. Microbes seem even more important. Inoculating soils with beneficial bacteria and fungi is an ages old agronomic practice that is poised to become much more effective as our knowledge of them becomes more detailed and explicit.