title: 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing of SomSOM soil collected at Klausen-Leopoldsdorf plot 5B, lower horizon, small core 1 [JMF-2101-10-0037B]
design: Soil was sampled in a mature beech forest (48.122 N 16.046 E, 540 m altitude) after removal of litter, on the April 12, 2021. The sampling site is located at the research site Klausen-Leopoldsdorf in the Vienna Woods, Lower Austria, Austria, which is run by the Austrian Federal Office and Research Centre for Forests. The soil type is classified as a dystric cambisol over sandstone with a loamloamy clay texture. Soil cores (8 cm diameter, 5 cm height) were taken at two soil depths (0-5 and 15-20 cm) one on top of the other, at two locations with approximately one meter distance to each other in five plots, respectively. This made up 10 soil cores for each soil depth. The cores were transported to the laboratory and kept at 4C overnight. Subsequently, we took two subsamples (core: 3 cm diameter, 5 cm height) from each core except for one core of the lower soil horizon, which contained too many stones to core it. We ended up with 20 sub-cores of the upper soil horizon and 18 for the lower soil horizon. After we sieved the cores (2 mm) and removed roots and stones, we weighed in 400 mg of each of the 38 samples in Lysis Matrix E tubes (MP Biomedicals) and stored them at -80C until DNA extraction. Collected soils (400 mg of soil) underwent bead-beating using Lysis Matrix E tubes (MP Biomedicals) on a PowerLyser (MP Biomedicals) for 30 seconds. Following bead-beading, DNA was extracted from the soil samples using the MPBio Soil DNA extraction kit (MP Biomedicals). Extracted DNA was assessed for quantity and quality prior to PCR amplification using the 515F/806R primers for the 16S SSU rRNA marker gene.