As precipitation (PPT) regimes are becoming more extreme worldwide, our understanding of how terrestrial ecosystems will respond to this aspect of climate change remains unclear. We addressed this research gap by a PPT gradient experiment that included PPT amounts simulating extremely dry and wet years in combination with a long-term (40 years) observational study in a grassland ecosystem. This study illustrates how a grassland responded to greater PPT variability and highlights the role of limiting resource shift in ecosystem responses to climate extremes. Thus, to accurately forecast future ecosystem feedbacks to climate change, we should take into account the negative asymmetric feature of ecosystem response to stronger climate variability.