8. Summary and outlook
Amplicon sequencing remains a valuable approach for investigating the
structure of microbial communities in soils. However, careful
considerations must be taken at each step – from sampling to analyses
of Amplicon Sequencing Variants (ASVs) to avoid mis- or
over-interpretation of the data. It is important to consider that
amplicon sequencing is primarily a hypothesis-generation tool, which may
require additional experimental support to unravel microbial community
dynamics. Sequencing is highly descriptive in nature, allowing one to
catalog the organisms present in a given environment/sample. However, the goal
of microbial ecology is to link organisms to dynamic processes
observed in the environment. This challenging work must therefore be
undertaken in complement to sequence-focused studies. When conducted in
combination with more quantitative approaches or the addition of other
forms of data, as well as more rigorous normalization and statistical
approaches, we as a field can improve the quality of our science and
further our understanding of microbial communities in the immensely
complex soil environment.