Fig. 1: Experimental design.

Sampling locations for laboratory burn experiments within Wood Buffalo National Park (WBNP), Canada (top left) and field-burned sites and controls in WBNP and the southern Northwest Territories (top right). Map created using ArcGIS Pro 2.7.0 (refs. 97,98). Inset indicates the relative location of the sampling region within North America. Simplified laboratory experimental design to identify bacterial taxa with fire-related traits (bottom left) and quantify the relative abundance of these traits in field data (bottom right).