Recommendations
In summary, we recommend that: 1) authors provide more transparent, detailed sampling information as well as sequencing and sampling effort curves, 2) sampling effort is not arbitrary, but is adjusted based on the diversity of plant microbiomes and per sample richness relative to total community richness (both of which may require preliminary sampling), and 3) authors consider increased sampling effort when investigating subtler drivers of microbial communities such as host filtering or small treatment differences, or when attempting to truly characterize microbial communities. Standardizing how we sample plant-associated microbial communities as suggested by Dickie et al ., (2018), or at the very least, insisting on more robust and transparent sampling strategies, will allow for more accurate and comprehensive analyses as well as better cross-study comparisons in the future.