Back in 2021, we had an important thought: maybe we should start treating microclimate the same way we treat macroclimate. Weather and climate are monitored by national governments through organize…

Our study focused on local-scale variation in litter decomposition using a spatially explicit and untargeted network of 113 plots across a 9-ha Chinese fir forest. Interestingly, we found variation i....

Microclimate affects organisms more directly than macroclimate, yet its long-term dynamics and drivers of decadal microclimate changes remain underexplored in ecology and global change biology. The general assumption is that microclimatic changes track macroclimate trends. However, changes in meteorological conditions (e.g., cloud cover, wind patterns) and vegetation dynamics (e.g., canopy thinning, desertification in drylands, shrub encroachment in the tundra) associated with climate change can lead to locally divergent microclimate trends, thereby altering spatial variability. Understanding and quantifying how climate change observed in standardized weather stations translates to fine-scale microclimate change experienced by organisms, populations and communities is therefore essential for predicting ecological responses to global environmental change.     This review examines how macroclimate change drives microclimate changes as experienced by life on Earth - and how these micro-scale changes may, in turn, feed back into the regional and global climate system. While our primary focus is on near-surface air and soil temperature - due to their relevance to most terrestrial organisms and ecosystem processes - we also discuss other tightly linked key climatic variables such as humidity and radiation. The review is structured around three pathways of microclimate changes: (I) direct effects of changes in meteorological conditions, (II) indirect effects via vegetation changes, and (III) feedbacks between microclimate and climate change. Using three mechanistic model simulations in real-world landscapes, we exemplify and quantify the key mechanisms that lead to divergent warming trends. By integrating perspectives from meteorology, climate science, and ecology, this review advances our understanding of the feedbacks between the biosphere, pedosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere. We argue that deciphering microclimate change is crucial to bridging the gap between climate science and its application in global change biology.

Plants can have a facilitative effect on co-occurring neighbours by moderating microclimate conditions. In forested areas, vegetation can ameliorate macroclimate extremes relative to open areas, yet ...

We found a positive, non-linear, saturating relationship between mainland and island leaf sizes, reflecting an island rule-like pattern. Small-leaved mainland species tend to develop larger leaves on...

Microclimates—as opposed to large-scale regional or even global scale macroclimate models—may hold the key to offsetting the negative impacts of extreme weather events on already vulnerable insect populations.

Species distributions are conventionally modelled using coarse-grained macroclimate data measured in open areas, potentially leading to biased predictions since most terrestrial species on Earth resi...

Assessment of species’ vulnerability to climate change has been limited by mismatch between coarse macroclimate data and the fine scales at which species select habitat. Habitat mediates climate conditions, and fine-scale habitat features may permit ...

YouTube video by Andrew Millison