The Galapagos Islands, located almost exactly on the equator, ca. 1000 km west of the Ecuadorian coast, are a world-renowned natural reserve protected by the Galapagos National Park Directorate. The archipelago has formed on the Nazca tectonic plate moving over a volcanic hotspot, which has generated a chain of volcanic islands of different ages. The climate is sub-tropical and precipitation regimes vary from arid to humid with elevation on the higher-standing islands. Although sparsely inhabited in the past, the islands have faced a rapid increase in the number of inhabitants during recent decades, and agriculture is practiced in the humid highlands of four of the islands. The study investigates the influence of the driving factors soil age and climate as well as human activity including land-use changes and agricultural management on soil physico-chemical properties and on soil fungal and bacterial communities in the unique environmental setting of the Galapagos Islands.