Editorial: Wildfire severity and forest soils: impacts and post-fire restoration strategies to mitigate climate change

Editorial on the Research Topic Wildfire severity and forest soils: impacts and post-fire restoration strategies to mitigate climate change Impacts of fire on forest soils have been widely studied in the last decades. Early studies compared burned and unburned areas, revealing that soil properties and dynamics are significantly affected by fire. Moreover, the advancements in soil and fire sciences revealed the importance of considering the variety of fire characteristics, ecosystem types and environmental pre- and post-fire conditions when studying fire effects on soils (Certini, 2005; Pereira et al., 2018; Fernández-García et al., 2020). Previous research has shown that the temperature reached in the soil and the residence time are critical factors that determine the effects of fire on soil properties. Biological and biochemical properties are generally altered at low temperatures (Fernández-García et al., 2020), while moderate temperatures cause shifts in soil organic matter and several nutrients (Marcos et al., 2007). High temperatures, on the other hand, can impact other chemical properties as well as ecologically relevant physical properties, such as soil structure and mineralogy (Santín and Doerr, 2016; Alcañiz et al., 2018; Fernández-García et al., 2019).