Fire impacts on soil microorganisms: Mass, activity, and diversity

The ecosystem response to fire is often linked to fire severity and recurrence, with potentially large consequences on both aboveground and below–ground processes. Understanding the fire impact has become increasingly important in the light of recent changes to disturbance regimes due to climate change. Although the impacts on the above vegetation and the below soil physical and chemical properties are well documented, it remains unclear how fire affects the fine-scale microorganisms. Microbial communities are responsible for driving essential ecosystem processes and particularly sensitive to changes induced in soil quality by wildfire or prescribed fire disturbances. This work is a review of the last three years' literature, dealing with the fire impact on mass, activity, and diversity of soil microorganisms from soil A horizon.