The research of Wim van der Putten has shown how soil-borne pathogens and parasites can drive compositional change in natural vegetation (Nature, 1993). Before that time, the traditional view in ecology was that symbiotic soil biota (mycorrhizal fungi and nitrogen-fixing microbes) and abiotic soil conditions (nutrients, pH, porosity, structure, and water availability) were the main belowground drivers of species composition and productivity of natural vegetation. His breakthrough on the role of soil-borne pathogens has stimulated numerous studies that advance understanding the role of plant-soil feedback interactions in functioning of natural ecosystems. He and coworkers have demonstrated that these feedback interactions promote diversity in plant communities (De Deyn et al. Nature, 2003), which is important information for ecological restoration, and that plant species that successfully shift range under current climate warming have similar properties as invasive species because of escape from aboveground and belowground enemies (Engelkes and Morrien et al. Nature, 2008). He and co-workers showed that extreme weather events may remain as legacy effects in the soil biota thus influencing plant invasiveness (PNAS, 2013). Future breakthroughs are expected to come from his ERC advanced grant (awarded in 2012), which enables him to gain insights in belowground-aboveground community re-assemblage process following climate warming-induced range shifts.