Soil microbial communities are well recognized for their importance in plant growth, biodiversity and ecosystem function. Anthropogenic disturbances (e.g., land use, land management and the introduction of invasive species) and can disrupt or displace microbial communities and may prevent these critical biotic interactions, yet we still lack synthetic understanding of these relationships and how they may be applied in conservation and restoration. In particular, we lack knowledge about the diversity and function of soil microorganisms and the role they play in disturbance recovery. From an applied perspective, we also face significant technical challenges in the utilization of soil microorganisms in restoration. Several research groups have taken up these challenges. Our session will highlight recent progress in our understanding of soil communities, from their basic ecology and response or resilience to perturbation, to advances in utilizing these communities to achieve restoration goals across a variety of terrestrial ecosystems. Specifically, we will discuss how soil microbial communities facilitate forest recovery from fire, stabilize soils in arid environments and aid in the re-establishment of native plant species following disturbance or invasion of exotics. To motivate conceptual advance, we will discuss cutting-edge molecular techniques for the identification of microbial communities, manipulative experiments for isolating causative factors in microbial response to perturbation, and the direct employment of microbial inocula in restoration efforts.