Bacterial rhizosphere soil communities following the Skirball wildfire

This study investigated the changes in the rhizosphere bacterial communities following the Skirball wildfire that occurred in Southern California during December 2017. Samples were collected from the Getty View Park area of the Santa Monica Mountains in January of 2018, 2019 and 2020 to monitor the recovery of the post-fire bacterial communities. Samples were collected from the rhizosphere soil from areas with both burned and unburned plants; some samples were collected from the nearby The Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden at UCLA as non-wild fire affected area controls. Samples were collected and processed using the kits and pipeline of the University of California Conservation Genomics Consortium CALeDNA program, which aims to monitor the biodiversity of California using environmental DNE (eDNA). This study is important for monitoring the environmental effects of wildfire on soil microbial communities in urban adjacent land.