Biological Soil Crust Microsites Are the Main Contributor to Soil Respiration in a Semiarid Ecosystem

Castillo‐Monroy, Andrea P.; Maestre, Fernando T.; Rey, Ana; Soliveres, Santiago; García‐Palacios, Pablo

doi:10.1007/s10021-011-9449-3

Cited by 151 publications

(113 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…Recent research has found that BSC-dominated microsites are the main contributor to soil CO 2 efflux in our study site [45]. In areas with well-developed BSCs, increases in such flux in response to increases in temperature during spring and autumn are higher than in areas without or with low BSC cover [45].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 62%

“…In areas with well-developed BSCs, increases in such flux in response to increases in temperature during spring and autumn are higher than in areas without or with low BSC cover [45]. In the Kalahari Desert, the same pattern was found, whereby soil respiration was enhanced with increases in air temperature, which could represent a net loss of carbon storages and a potential process of soil deterioration [22,96].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 65%

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Warming reduces the growth and diversity of biological soil crusts in a semi-arid environment: implications for ecosystem structure and functioning

Escolar

Martínez

Bowker

et al. 2012

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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133

136

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Biological soil crusts (BSCs) are key biotic components of dryland ecosystems worldwide that control many functional processes, including carbon and nitrogen cycling, soil stabilization and infiltration. Regardless of their ecological importance and prevalence in drylands, very few studies have explicitly evaluated how climate change will affect the structure and composition of BSCs, and the functioning of their constituents. Using a manipulative experiment conducted over 3 years in a semi-arid site from central Spain, we evaluated how the composition, structure and performance of lichen-dominated BSCs respond to a 2.48C increase in temperature, and to an approximately 30 per cent reduction of total annual rainfall. In areas with well-developed BSCs, warming promoted a significant decrease in the richness and diversity of the whole BSC community. This was accompanied by important compositional changes, as the cover of lichens suffered a substantial decrease with warming (from 70 to 40% on average), while that of mosses increased slightly (from 0.3 to 7% on average). The physiological performance of the BSC community, evaluated using chlorophyll fluorescence, increased with warming during the first year of the experiment, but did not respond to rainfall reduction. Our results indicate that ongoing climate change will strongly affect the diversity and composition of BSC communities, as well as their recovery after disturbances. The expected changes in richness and composition under warming could reduce or even reverse the positive effects of BSCs on important soil processes. Thus, these changes are likely to promote an overall reduction in ecosystem processes that sustain and control nutrient cycling, soil stabilization and water dynamics.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 62%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 65%

Warming reduces the growth and diversity of biological soil crusts in a semi-arid environment: implications for ecosystem structure and functioning

Escolar

Martínez

Bowker

et al. 2012

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

Self Cite

133

136

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Higher ARYL and NAG activities observed under the oak canopy in the pasture were associated with macrofungal richness, as these saprophytic organisms benefit from nutrients' availability and hyphae if soils are preserved from tillage (Santos-Silva et al, 2011). In fact, Castillo-Monroy et al (2011) observed a high covering of soil biological crust under perennial plant canopy if soil is undisturbed. Moreover, ARYL and NAG were linearly correlated with TOC, MR basal , C 0 , and qM; therefore, the activities of these enzymes were associated with both high soil metabolic activity and TOC.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 88%

Variation in soil C and microbial functions across tree canopy projection and open grassland microenvironments

Lai¹,

Lagomarsino²,

Ledda³

et al. 2014

Turk J Agric For

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“…In order to accurately predict global C cycling under a changing climate, it is necessary to know how dryland soil respiration (R s ), the primary path by which CO 2 fixed by plants returns to atmosphere [3], responds to variations in climate. Currently, the R s of dryland ecosystems and its responses to environmental factors are studied to a much lesser extent compared to other ecosystems [4].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Biocrusts, a key biotic component of dryland ecosystems, can exert important impacts on regional C processes such as R s [4]. For instance, biocrusts were reported to affect R s by constraining microsite factors, such as T s and SWC [16].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diurnal Freeze-Thaw Cycles Modify Winter Soil Respiration in a Desert Shrub-Land Ecosystem

Liu

Zha

Jia

et al. 2016

Forests

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Abstract:Winter soil respiration (R s ) is becoming a significant component of annual carbon budgets with more warming in winter than summer. However, little is known about the controlling mechanisms of winter R s in dryland. We made continuous measurements of R s in four microsites (non-crust (BS), lichen (LC), moss (MC), and a mixture of moss and lichen (ML)) in a desert shrub-land ecosystem northern China, to investigate the causes of R s dynamics in winter. The mean winter R s ranged from 0.10 to 0.17 µmol CO 2 m´2¨s´1 across microsites, with the highest value in BS. Winter Q 10 (known as the increase in respiration rate per 10˝C increase in temperature) values (2.8-19) were much higher than those from the growing season (1.5). R s and Q 10 were greatly enhanced in freeze-thaw cycles compared to frozen days. Diurnal patterns of R s between freeze-thaw and frozen days differed. Although the freeze-thaw period was relatively short, its cumulative R s contributed significantly to winter R s . The presence of biocrust might induce lower temperature, thus having fewer freeze-thaw cycles relative to bare soil, leading to the lower R s for microsites with biocrusts. In conclusion, winter R s in drylands was sensitive to soil temperature (T s ) and T s -induced freeze-thaw cycles. The temperature impact on R s varied among soil cover types. Winter R s in drylands may become more important as the climate is continuously getting warmer.

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Biological Soil Crust Microsites Are the Main Contributor to Soil Respiration in a Semiarid Ecosystem

Cited by 151 publications

References 60 publications

Warming reduces the growth and diversity of biological soil crusts in a semi-arid environment: implications for ecosystem structure and functioning

Warming reduces the growth and diversity of biological soil crusts in a semi-arid environment: implications for ecosystem structure and functioning

Variation in soil C and microbial functions across tree canopy projection and open grassland microenvironments

Diurnal Freeze-Thaw Cycles Modify Winter Soil Respiration in a Desert Shrub-Land Ecosystem

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