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As a young trainee in the field of restoration ecology in the modern age, it is difficult to feel optimistic about our future. As many environmental protections are de‐regulated and the climate crisis heightens, I turned to restoration to find hope in a changing world. Restoration ecologists are the optimists of biology. We work every day to make the world a better place and our passion and forward thinking spurred the United Nation's “decade of restoration.” Learning about the successes of the hardworking members of this field gives me hope. As the earth moves toward an unimaginable future, we should continue to try to make the world a better place and encourage those around us to act and restore the environments they value, whether it be large‐scale restoration or preserving garden pollinator habitat. I am forever thankful to restoration ecology and the optimism the field provides.

Microbial communities are integral for ecosystem processes and their taxonomic composition and function may be altered by a disturbance such as fire. Biocrusts are composed of macroscopic and microscopic organisms and are important for a variety of ecosystem functions, such as nutrient cycling and erosion control. We sought to understand if biocrust community composition and function were altered 1 year after a prescribed fire and 6 years after a wildfire in a coastal California grassland on San Clemente Island. We used shotgun metagenomic sequencing and measurements of chlorophyll content, exopolysaccharide production related to soil stability, and nitrogen fixation. There were no differences in the community composition between unburned samples and the samples burned in the prescribed fire and wildfire. Chlorophyll content differed between the prescribed fire and the controls; however, there were no measured differences in exopolysaccharide production, and nitrogen fixation. However, the wildfire and their respective unburned samples had different functions based on the gene annotations. We compiled one Actinobacteria metagenome-assembled genome from the shotgun sequences which had genes for oxidative and heat stress tolerance. These results suggest that the biocrust community can reach a community composition and function similar to the unburned biocrusts within a year after a prescribed burn and 6 years after a wildfire. However, legacy effects of the wildfire may present themselves in the differences between functional gene sequences. Due to their ability to match the undisturbed community composition and function within years and without intervention, future restoration work should consider the biocrusts in their restoration plans as they may provide valuable ecosystem functions after a disturbance.