Droughts are expected to increase in extremity, duration and frequency with climate change. This expected intensification of drought events is likely to have profound, but largely unknown, impacts on terrestrial ecosystems in many regions of the world. Extreme droughts by definition naturally occur infrequently and those that are both prolonged and extreme are even rarer in their occurrence. As such, a growing number of experiments have been conducted to understand the impacts of intensified droughts. The goal of this session is to provide an overview of experiments addressing how intensification of drought affects terrestrial ecosystem structure and functioning and the potential mechanisms underlying variation in ecosystem response to intensified drought.