2.1- Soil Collection
We collected a total of six soil samples from three environmentally
distinct locations: two samples from St Paul Island, Alaska, USA (StP.1:
57.136074, -170.82537; StP.2: 57.10577, -170.10563), and four samples
from two sites in California, USA. The California samples include two
from Fort Ord Natural Reserve in Marina (FO.1, an open sand dune:
36.68448, -121.77731; FO.2, a chaparral ecosystem: 36.68301,
-121.78071), and two from and two from Younger Lagoon in Santa Cruz
(YL.1, the basin of a coastal lagoon: 36.950081, -122.066756; YL.2, a
grassland coastal terrace: 36.949314, -122.063575).
We designed and implemented field sampling protocols to minimize the
risk of cross-contamination between soil samples. At each site, we wore
clean gloves and used a clean trowel to collect soil from 2-6” below
the surface, which we deposited into sterile 50mL falcon tubes. We
sterilized trowels between sites serially with bleach and rinsed with
ultraPure water and ethanol. Alaskan samples were kept cool during
transfer to California and then frozen. Californian samples were frozen
at -20˚C immediately after collection.