Data for: Differential responses of soil bacterial communities to a prescribed fire in a paired restored and remnant prairie system

Restoration of prairie and oak savanna systems on former agricultural land is an important effort for improving soil health and ecosystem services. Restored and remnant systems in the same region are often managed using the same strategies, including implementation of prescribed fire. Yet, soil microbial communities and functions in these two types of systems are typically very different due to past land-use history and current plant community composition. In this study, we investigated the responses of soil bacterial communities, enzyme activities and putative functional pathways to the effects of prescribed fire in a paired remnant and restored prairie system located in southwest Michigan, USA. We examined the immediate effects of fire one day after the fire as well as the longer-term effects in a time series extending to 11-months after the fire. Our results indicate that the soil bacterial communities in the remnant were immediately responsive in composition but not in function. Additionally, remnant community composition in burned plots returned to the composition in the control within one month, indicating resiliency in this community. In contrast, soil bacterial communities in the restoration shifted both compositionally and functionally one day after the fire, and continued to differ after 11-months. Past land-use effects on bacterial community composition and site-level heterogeneity, coupled with present-day differences in plant communities and litter quantity, mediated the different responses in the two systems. Our results suggest that land management plans aimed at increasing soil functional resiliency may require different management strategies for restored and remnant prairies.