Keep it together: Soil core translocation improves establishment of donor‐like microbial communities

Soil microbiota are fundamental ecosystem components that can accelerate ecosystem recovery, yet their deliberate integration into restoration practice remains limited. Despite growing interest, there are few experimental assessments on how to effectively implement soil translocations to inoculate whole microbial communities into degraded sites as an ecosystem restoration intervention.

We embedded a replicated field experiment into a large ecosystem restoration project in a global biodiversity hotspot in southwest Western Australia to compare three soil translocation methods: intact soil cores, mixed soil cores and surface spreading. Microbial communities were tracked for 1‐year post‐translocation at two restoration sites using high‐throughput sequencing of bacterial and fungal communities to assess microbial establishment in translocated soils and dispersal into surrounding soils.

We show that installing soils as either intact or mixed cores within the soil profile consistently resulted in greater retention of donor‐like microbial communities than surface spreading. Installing soils within the soil profile likely protected microbiota from environmental exposure and accordingly retained more donor‐like communities.

Intact soil cores achieved the highest similarity to donor communities overall. Intact cores consistently outperformed surface spreading compared to mixed cores, suggesting that retaining soil structural integrity during translocation can provide additional benefits. Surface spreading—a widespread method of soil translocation used in restoration—showed limited retention of donor‐like microbiota. Communities diverged from donor profiles and were more strongly influenced by abiotic legacies in recipient soils, underscoring the limitations of this approach.

Synthesis and applications: Microbial inoculation can be substantially improved by using core‐based soil translocation approaches. While intact cores may maximise the establishment of donor‐like communities, both intact and mixed cores consistently outperformed surface spreading, suggesting that core‐based installation of soils within the soil profile can improve inoculation outcomes. Preserving soil structural integrity may further improve establishment of donor‐like microbial communities. Adoption of core‐based installation approaches can increase the effectiveness of restoration interventions, helping to meet the rising demand for methods that accelerate soil biodiversity recovery and restore associated ecosystem functions.