Bacterial and fungal distribution in distinct soil pore size classes

Our study sought to explore the physical controls of pore-scale soil structure and water distribution on bacteria and fungi: i.e., how pore-scale heterogeneity regulates microbial community structure and functioning. Specifically, the objective of this work was to ascertain how soil microbes of different life history strategies (i.e., copiotrophs vs oligotrophs) distributed across large and smaller soil pores. By exploring microbial responses to moisture change in pores of different sizes, we aimed to elucidate the patterns of trait-based microbial distribution at the pore scale. A bioinformatics tool, PICRUSt2 was also used to predict microbial functional distribution across pore size classes.