Many ecosystem engineers disturb and turn over soil, enhancing soil function and productivity by increasing enzyme activity and altering microbial community composition. In semi-arid mallee woodlands, soil-disturbing malleefowl (Leipoa ocellata: Megapodiidae) create a novel microsite with unique soil chemistry and cover characteristics when they build incubation mounds. Malleefowl mounds likely enhance soil functioning, providing habitat for decomposer organisms and facilitating organic material decomposition, however this has yet to be empirically measured.We sampled soil bacterial communities and soil enzymes at five microsites: malleefowl mounds (1), high-resource patches underneath trees near malleefowl mounds (2) and far from mounds (3), and in the low-resource interpatch matrix near mounds (4) and far from mounds (5). Samples were taken from mounds of different ages. Bacterial DNA was extracted and sequenced, and we performed functional profiling to predict metabolic pathways.We found that mound-building by malleefowl significantly enhanced soil processes: microsites had distinct bacterial communities, including impacts on the relative abundance of the most common bacterial phyla. Microbial functional profiling revealed that mounds had an increase in pathways involved in degradation, and enzyme activity at the mound was comparable to the high-resource patches underneath trees, and significantly higher than the low-resource interpatch matrix. SynthesisMalleefowl soil disturbance could promote nutrient cycling via enriching bacterial communities and their activities involved in organic material degradation. The mound provides a stable environment, which combines many optimal features for decomposer microbes. These results strengthen our understanding of the impact that avian soil disturbance can have on soil function by enhancing multifunctionality in a depauperate arid ecosystem.