Biocrusts in the Context of Global Change

Reed, Sasha C.; Maestre, Fernando T.; Ochoa‐Hueso, Raúl; Kuske, Cheryl R.; Darrouzet‐Nardi, Anthony; Oliver, Mel; Darby, Brian J.; Sancho, Leopoldo G.; Sinsabaugh, Robert L.; Belnap, Jayne

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-30214-0_22

Cited by 52 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 151 publications

(174 reference statements)

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“…() – primarily as a result of differences in the dominant biocrust constituents and in the climatic treatments applied. In addition, it is possible that the different warming methods used in both studies (OTCs in this study vs infrared lamps in Ferrenberg et al ., ) significantly influenced the timing of the lichen cover responses, as OTCs could have a larger impact on air and soil moisture than do infrared lamps (Reed et al ., ; Young et al ., ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Warming reduces the cover, richness and evenness of lichen‐dominated biocrusts but promotes moss growth: insights from an 8 yr experiment

et al. 2018

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Despite the important role that biocrust communities play in maintaining ecosystem structure and functioning in drylands world-wide, few studies have evaluated how climate change will affect them. Using data from an 8-yr-old manipulative field experiment located in central Spain, we evaluated how warming, rainfall exclusion and their combination affected the dynamics of biocrust communities in areas that initially had low (< 20%, LIBC plots) and high (> 50%, HIBC plots) biocrust cover. Warming reduced the richness (35 ± 6%), diversity (25 ± 8%) and cover (82 ± 5%) of biocrusts in HIBC plots. The presence and abundance of mosses increased with warming through time in these plots, although their growth rate was much lower than the rate of lichen death, resulting in a net loss of biocrust cover. On average, warming caused a decrease in the abundance (64 ± 7%) and presence (38 ± 24%) of species in the HIBC plots. Over time, lichens and mosses colonized the LIBC plots, but this process was hampered by warming in the case of lichens. The observed reductions in the cover and diversity of lichen-dominated biocrusts with warming will lessen the capacity of drylands such as that studied here to sequester atmospheric CO and to provide other key ecosystem services associated to these communities.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Warming reduces the cover, richness and evenness of lichen‐dominated biocrusts but promotes moss growth: insights from an 8 yr experiment

et al. 2018

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“…Open‐top chambers (OTCs) are a common method to simulate climate warming (Bokhorst et al., ; Reed et al., ), but the methacrylate sheets used to build them can intercept fog circulation, increasing the duration of dew events and thereby confounding the effects of elevated temperatures. Importantly, our OTCs were elevated five cm from the ground, to allow air circulation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pathways regulating decreased soil respiration with warming in a biocrust‐dominated dryland

García‐Palacios

Escolar

Dacal

et al. 2018

Global Change Biology

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A positive soil carbon (C)-climate feedback is embedded into the climatic models of the IPCC. However, recent global syntheses indicate that the temperature sensitivity of soil respiration (R ) in drylands, the largest biome on Earth, is actually lower in warmed than in control plots. Consequently, soil C losses with future warming are expected to be low compared with other biomes. Nevertheless, the empirical basis for these global extrapolations is still poor in drylands, due to the low number of field experiments testing the pathways behind the long-term responses of soil respiration (R ) to warming. Importantly, global drylands are covered with biocrusts (communities formed by bryophytes, lichens, cyanobacteria, fungi, and bacteria), and thus, R responses to warming may be driven by both autotrophic and heterotrophic pathways. Here, we evaluated the effects of 8-year experimental warming on R , and the different pathways involved, in a biocrust-dominated dryland in southern Spain. We also assessed the overall impacts on soil organic C (SOC) accumulation over time. Across the years and biocrust cover levels, warming reduced R by 0.30 μmol CO m s (95% CI = -0.24 to 0.84), although the negative warming effects were only significant after 3 years of elevated temperatures in areas with low initial biocrust cover. We found support for different pathways regulating the warming-induced reduction in R at areas with low (microbial thermal acclimation via reduced soil mass-specific respiration and β-glucosidase enzymatic activity) vs. high (microbial thermal acclimation jointly with a reduction in autotrophic respiration from decreased lichen cover) initial biocrust cover. Our 8-year experimental study shows a reduction in soil respiration with warming and highlights that biocrusts should be explicitly included in modeling efforts aimed to quantify the soil C-climate feedback in drylands.

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“…Due to the grazing history of our sites, most had soils dominated by bare ground and poorly developed biocrusts (i.e., low biomass of lichens and moss; Belnap, 1995Belnap, , 2002. Biocrusts have the potential to help dictate system responses to climatic change (Reed et al, 2016) and future work is needed to elucidate these interactions. In the data analyzed here, there was not enough variation in biocrust cover or developmental stage to determine their functional role in drought mitigation or exacerbation.…”

Section: Speciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shrub persistence and increased grass mortality in response to drought in dryland systems

Winkler

Belnap

Hoover

et al. 2019

Global Change Biology

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Droughts in the southwest United States have led to major forest and grassland die‐off events in recent decades, suggesting plant community and ecosystem shifts are imminent as native perennial grass populations are replaced by shrub‐ and invasive plant‐dominated systems. These patterns are similar to those observed in arid and semiarid systems around the globe, but our ability to predict which species will experience increased drought‐induced mortality in response to climate change remains limited. We investigated meteorological drought‐induced mortality of nine dominant plant species in the Colorado Plateau Desert by experimentally imposing a year‐round 35% precipitation reduction for eight continuous years. We distributed experimental plots across numerous plant, soil, and parent material types, resulting in 40 distinct sites across a 4,500 km2 region of the Colorado Plateau Desert. For all 8 years, we tracked c. 400 individual plants and evaluated mortality responses to treatments within and across species, and through time. We also examined the influence of abiotic and biotic site factors in driving mortality responses. Overall, high mortality trends were driven by dominant grass species, including Achnatherum hymenoides, Pleuraphis jamesii, and Sporobolus cryptandrus. Responses varied widely from year to year and dominant shrub species were generally resistant to meteorological drought, likely due to their ability to access deeper soil water. Importantly, mortality increased in the presence of invasive species regardless of treatment, and native plant die‐off occurred even under ambient conditions, suggesting that recent climate changes are already negatively impacting dominant species in these systems. Results from this long‐term drought experiment suggest major shifts in community composition and, as a result, ecosystem function. Patterns also show that, across multiple soil and plant community types, native perennial grass species may be replaced by shrubs and invasive annuals in the Colorado Plateau Desert.

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Biocrusts in the Context of Global Change

Cited by 52 publications

References 151 publications

Warming reduces the cover, richness and evenness of lichen‐dominated biocrusts but promotes moss growth: insights from an 8 yr experiment

Warming reduces the cover, richness and evenness of lichen‐dominated biocrusts but promotes moss growth: insights from an 8 yr experiment

Pathways regulating decreased soil respiration with warming in a biocrust‐dominated dryland

Shrub persistence and increased grass mortality in response to drought in dryland systems

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