Analyses of dryland biological soil crusts highlight lichens as an important regulator of microbial communities

Maier, Stephanie D.; Schmidt, Thomas Sebastian Benedikt; Zheng, Lingjuan; Peer, Thomas; Wagner, Viktória; Grube, Martín

doi:10.1007/s10531-014-0719-1

Cited by 76 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…They provide ecological services such as soil stabilization, reduction of wind and water erosion, and facilitation of higher plant colonization (Belnap, 2003;Belnap and Lange, 2001;Maier et al, 2014;Pointing and Belnap, 2012). BSCs are functionally important and variable, and may be a useful model system for diversityfunction research.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Bacteria present the highest proportion of the microbial biomass in BSCs (Bates et al, 2010;Green et al, 2008;Gundlapally and Garcia-Pichel, 2006;Maier et al, 2014;Wang et al, 2015) and thus have important roles in the BSC successional process. They can decompose organic material and release nutrients, mediating geochemical processes necessary for ecosystem functioning in the persistence of BSCs (Balser and Firestone, 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Most research on prokaryotic diversity of BSCs has focused on cyanobacteriadominated biocrusts in arid and semiarid regions (Abed et al, 2010;Garcia-Pichel et al, 2001;Nagy et al, 2005;Steven et al, 2013;Yeager et al, 2004). Recent studies of the bacterial community structure of bryophyte-or lichendominated crusts indicate that lichen-associated communities encompass a wide taxonomic diversity of bacteria (Bates et al, 2011;Cardinale et al, 2008;Maier et al, 2014). Heterotrophic bacteria may perform a variety of roles such as nutrient mobilization and N fixation and could be of considerable importance for the stability of lichen-dominated soil communities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Development of bacterial communities in biological soil crusts along a revegetation chronosequence in the Tengger Desert, northwest China

Liu

Zhang

et al. 2017

Biogeosciences

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Abstract. Knowledge of structure and function of microbial communities in different successional stages of biological soil crusts (BSCs) is still scarce for desert areas. In this study, Illumina MiSeq sequencing was used to assess the compositional changes of bacterial communities in different ages of BSCs in the revegetation of Shapotou in the Tengger Desert. The most dominant phyla of bacterial communities shifted with the changed types of BSCs in the successional stages, from Firmicutes in mobile sand and physical crusts to Actinobacteria and Proteobacteria in BSCs, and the most dominant genera shifted from Bacillus, Enterococcus and Lactococcus to RB41_norank and JG34-KF-361_norank. Alpha diversity and quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis indicated that bacterial richness and abundance reached their highest levels after 15 years of BSC development. Redundancy analysis showed that silt + clay content and total K were the prime determinants of the bacterial communities of BSCs. The results suggested that bacterial communities of BSCs recovered quickly with the improved soil physicochemical properties in the early stages of BSC succession. Changes in the bacterial community structure may be an important indicator in the biogeochemical cycling and nutrient storage in early successional stages of BSCs in desert ecosystems.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Development of bacterial communities in biological soil crusts along a revegetation chronosequence in the Tengger Desert, northwest China

Liu

Zhang

et al. 2017

Biogeosciences

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“…Much less, however, is known about the importance of biocrusts on the diversity and abundance of particular microbial communities such as those related to N processes. Aboveground components of biocrusts have been reported to influence the structure of associated soil bacterial communities Maier et al, 2014), as well as functional groups related to N transformation such as ammoniaoxidizing prokaryotes (Marusenko et al, 2013;Delgado-Baquerizo et al, 2014. The availability of N for plants and microbes is predominantly mediated by particular microbial communities that carry out important processes such as nitrification and denitrification (Robertson and Groffman, 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Species identity of biocrust-forming lichens drives the response of soil nitrogen cycle to altered precipitation frequency and nitrogen amendment

Liu

Delgado‐Baquerizo

Trivedi

et al. 2016

Soil Biology and Biochemistry

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a b s t r a c tBiological soil crusts (biocrusts) are fundamental components of drylands worldwide, and are of great importance for the regulation of ecosystem functioning. However, little is known on the role of species identify of biocrust-forming lichens in mediating the response of nitrogen (N) cycling to concurring global environmental change. Here, we conducted a microcosm study to evaluate how the species identity of biocrust-forming lichens (Diploschistes thunbergianus, Psora crystallifera and Xanthoparmelia reptans) regulate key processes of N cycling in response to simulated changes in rainfall frequency and N addition. We explicitly considered both direct and indirect effects (i.e. driven via microbial diversity and abundance) of global changes on N availability and losses using structural equation models. Our results showed that species of biocrust-forming lichens differentially mediated effects of N amendment and altered rainfall frequencies on belowground nitrate availability and N 2 O flux rate. For instance, soils under P. crystallifera species showed the highest increase in nitrate content in response to N amendment under low rainfall frequency. Moreover, soils under D. thunbergianus showed the highest N 2 O flux under high rainfall frequency without N addition. Interestingly, soils under X. reptans showed lowest and highest resistance in nitrate availability and N 2 O flux, respectively, in response to N addition regardless of different rainfall frequencies. Strikingly, we only found an indirect impact of either rainfall frequency or N amendment on the nitrate availability (but not N 2 O flux) driven via the ammonia-oxidizing community under X. reptans. Our results provide evidence that the species identity of biocrust-forming lichens modulates the response of N cycling to global change drivers. These findings have implications for predicting the potential consequence of altered rainfall patterns and environmental N inputs in dryland ecosystems.

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“…Bacteroidetes were significantly more abundant in surface soils of all areas even in the absence of a consolidated crust, whilst subsurface soils yielded more sequences affiliated to Acidobacteria, Actinobacteria, Chloroflexi, and Firmicutes. Maier et al (2014) present a description of the prokaryotic communities found in biocrusts formed by Psora decipiens and Toninia sedifolia in the Tabernas basin (Almería, SE Spain) using 454 high throughput 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequencing approach. As found by Elliot et al (2014), cyanobacteria were more abundant at the soil surface but rare in below-crust soils, whilst below-crust soils harbored significantly more Acidobacteria, Verrucomicrobia, Gemmatimonadetes, Planctomycetes, and Armatimonadetes.…”

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confidence: 99%

Biological soil crusts in a changing world: introduction to the special issue

2014

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Analyses of dryland biological soil crusts highlight lichens as an important regulator of microbial communities

Cited by 76 publications

References 63 publications

Development of bacterial communities in biological soil crusts along a revegetation chronosequence in the Tengger Desert, northwest China

Development of bacterial communities in biological soil crusts along a revegetation chronosequence in the Tengger Desert, northwest China

Species identity of biocrust-forming lichens drives the response of soil nitrogen cycle to altered precipitation frequency and nitrogen amendment

Biological soil crusts in a changing world: introduction to the special issue

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