The forest floor (FF) plays a key role in carbon, nutrient, and water cycling. It is the biologically most active compartment of forest soils, highly responsive to environmental conditions. Yet, its response to current changes in environmental conditions and forest management is understudied. Temperate forests are among the best studied ecosystems globally, providing the necessary ecological and biogeochemical background infor...

Soil microbial ecology has been transformed by recent progress in sequencing and metagenomics, reshaping our understanding of soil microbial functions. This article examines how metagenomics can be used to study the functional potential of soil microbiomes. We highlight opportunities and limitations of current tools and workflows utilized for the analyses of metagenomic sequencing data, providing guidance for methodological th...