Rainfall patterns will change in the future, with tremendous consequences for humans and ecosystems. Many regions will experience less rain or longer dry periods, and water scarcity will be exacerbated by increased temperatures. These changes threaten food security, water quality and supply, and conservation of biodiversity. In this session, we consider the ecological impacts of drought and deluge across disciplines and scales. We feature work quantifying microbial, plant, ecosystem, and human response to drought, with particular focus on grasslands and croplands and studies that aim to scale or generalize rainfall responses. Synthesis is much-needed in this area, and we hope to highlight where ecological data can reduce uncertainty in responses to drought and floods, and contribute to preservation of ecosystem services under altered rainfall. Topics in this session range from small- to large-scales so to form a coherent whole through contributions from individual talks. Speakers will address microbial sensitivity to drought, and how this impacts heterotrophic respiration, which will connect studies on the drought sensitivity of different ecosystems and plant communities and large-scale biogeochemical changes under drought. Our final talks will link ecological drought response to farmer decision-making surrounding drought and show how ecological information can inform predictions of drought response through simulation modeling.