Global change is expected to increase the diversity of bacteria at the local level, while their composition will become more uniform at the global level. This is the finding of a team of researchers involving the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences, the German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg and the University of Leipzig. The researchers have -for the first time- holistically assessed how climate and land use changes affect bacterial communities in soil. The study, published in “Global Ecology and Biogeography” can help make reliable predictions about changes in the global distribution of these belowground communities.