The central research question of this project is whether the resistance of species-rich plant communities to different stress factors will change in a future climate. To this end we will grow grassland mesocosms in sunlit controlled chambers under either the present or future climate conditions, and expose them to a wide range of stressors: drought, nitrogen deficiency, nitrogen saturation (eutrophication), and heavy metals (cadmium). Stressors will be applied separately to assess dose-response relations, but also in combination to examine their interactive impact. Besides evaluating the responses to stress in a future climate the experiments address basic questions, such as: are resistances to different stressors coupled ('co-tolerance')? or, can stress resistance be predicted from plant or community characteristics measured under normal climate conditions?