Schematic representation of the main spatio-temporal scales of soil ecosystems. Climate and seasonal patterns are depicted aboveground. The three main scales at which researchers investigate soil microbial communities are depicted as the macroscale, mesoscale, and microscale. Circle insets show the resolution at which microbial communities can be studied at each scale, emphasizing that careful experimental planning must be undertaken to capture community dynamics of interest. A partial single region of a selected marker gene that is captured by amplicon sequencing is depicted in the lower yellow box.