design: For total DNA extraction, we used the PowerMax Soil DNA Isolation Kit (MO BIO Laboratories, USA) according to the manufacturers instructions. We used 10 g (dry weight) from all soil samples and 15 ml of the litter samples (corresponding to 310 g of dry weight litter, depending on texture and composition). We checked DNA extraction quality and concentration in a Qubit 30 fluorimeter (Invitrogen, Sweden). The soil and litter samples from which DNA was successfully extracted were sent to Aimethods (Germany) for amplification and sequencing. Eukaryotes were targeted with the V7 region of the 18S rDNA gene using the forward and reverse primers (5-TTTGTCTGSTTAATTSCG-3) and (5-TCACAGACCTGTTATTGC-3) designed by Guardiola et al. (2015) to yield 100110 bases long fragments.