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for sequencing microbial communities are constantly improving, necessitating storage of samples for future analyses. However, tests of different storage approaches have been limited, hindering our ability to use soil samples stored under various conditions to understand how microbial communities may be changing over time. Few studies have directly compared the effects of different storage methods on microbiome composition over month-to-decade time scales. Here, we present evidence from two experiments investigating how microbial community composition differs between soil samples collected at the same time and stored under different conditions. In a short-term experiment, we measured the effects of three months of refrigeration at 4 °C versus three months of freezing at −80 °C, and in a long-term experiment, we measured the effects of up to 8 years of air-drying at room temperature versus …