Investigating the impacts of logging and regeneration burn severity on the soil microbiome and comparing them with natural wildfire disturbance

The soil microbiome is a fundamental component of terrestrial ecosystems. Bacterial and fungal communities in the soil are responsible for nutrient availability, as well as driving the decomposition and recycling of organic matter and soil formation. Recent advances in DNA sequencing technology have greatly increased our ability to characterise the soil microbiome, allowing researchers novel opportunities to investigate the response of these essential microbiota to environmental disturbances. In the temperate wet eucalypt forests of Tasmania, periodic wildfire is the major type of natural disturbance. Accordingly, the silvicultural management of these forests employs the use of controlled fire after timber harvesting to mimic the natural ecological processes underlying forest regeneration post-wildfire.
The objectives of this thesis were to investigate the response of soil bacterial and fungal communities, and the aboveground vegetation, to the clear-fell, burn, and sow method widely employed in the wet eucalypt forests of Tasmania and to compare these findings with the impacts of natural wildfire disturbance.