Summary Fire alters ecosystems by changing the composition and community structure of soil microbes. The phylogenetic structure of a community provides clues about its main assembling mechanisms. While environmental filtering tends to reduce the community phylogenetic diversity by selecting for functionally (and hence phylogenetically) similar species, processes like competitive exclusion by limiting similarity tend to increas...

Summary A complex microbial system consisting of six different interconnected localities was thoroughly investigated at full scale for over a year. The metacommunity concept originating from macro‐ecology was used to uncover mechanisms of community assembly by observing microbial interrelationships in and between the different localities via correlation and network analysis. The individual‐based observation approach was applie...

Slash‐and‐burn clearing of forest typically results in increase in soil nutrient availability. However, the impact of these nutrients on the soil microbiome is not known. Using next generation sequencing of 16S rRNA gene and shotgun metagenomic DNA , we compared the structure and the potential functions of bacterial community in forest soils to deforested soils in the Amazon region and related the differences to soil chemical...