Abstract
Canopy soils are a largely unexplored habitat for microbial life. Fungi and bacteria make up extremely diverse assemblages in soils in any habitat, but those occurring in canopy soils are largely unknown. The diversity of both canopy and terrestrial soils are assessed in this study using next generation sequencing techniques of prokaryotic 16S rRNA and rDNA, and fungal ITS mRNA and DNA. The assemblages are thus characterised to determine if there are unique features of canopy soils in terms of soil character and microbial diversity, in comparison with the soils of the forest floor.