Moss-dominated biocrusts decrease soil moisture and result in the degradation of artificially planted shrubs under semiarid climate

Xiao, Bo; Hu, Kelin

doi:10.1016/j.geoderma.2017.01.009

Cited by 80 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…In addition, these results suggest that lichen-dominated (i.e., LB) and well-developed moss biocrusts (i.e., OAMB) significantly decreased soil infiltrability by decreasing K s (Figure 2). In agreement with our findings, Xiao and Hu (2017) found that biocrusts significantly decreased soil infiltrability by decreasing saturated hydraulic conductivity. In addition, higher amount of silt and clay in mossdominated biocrusts block soil pores, leading to a reduction in water infiltration.…”

Section: Influence Of Biocrusts On Soil Hydrological Propertiessupporting

confidence: 93%

“…Xiao and Hu (2017) found that biocrusts decreased soil water availability to vascular vegetation and thus reduced growth of artificially planted shrubs. Xiao and Hu (2017) found that biocrusts decreased soil water availability to vascular vegetation and thus reduced growth of artificially planted shrubs.…”

Section: Influence Of Biocrusts On Vascular Vegetationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, determination of how the presence of biocrusts affects the shrub growth has been the focus of studies (Li, Tian, Jia, Zhang, & Liu, 2010;Xiao & Hu, 2017). Therefore, determination of how the presence of biocrusts affects the shrub growth has been the focus of studies (Li, Tian, Jia, Zhang, & Liu, 2010;Xiao & Hu, 2017).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Does biocrust successional stage determine the degradation of vascular vegetation via alterations in its hydrological roles in semi‐arid ecosystem?

Guan

Liu

2019

Ecohydrology

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Biocrusts may influence soil moisture by changing soil hydrological properties and thus affect the growth of vascular vegetation. However, their effects on soil moisture and vascular vegetation have not been sufficiently evaluated. In this study, five treatments, including bare land with sporadic cyanobacterial biocrusts (BL), lichendominated biocrusts, Artemisia ordosica (AO), A. ordosica with moss biocrusts, and old-aged A. ordosica with moss biocrusts (OAMB), were established to evaluate the effects of biocrusts on soil hydrological properties and shrub growth. Our results showed that the field capacity (θ f ) and saturated soil moisture (θ s ) for the OAMB treatment was higher than that for the BL treatment, although the difference between the five treatments was insignificant. The OAMB treatment deceased soil moisture 8.7% on average due to their significant lower saturated hydraulic conductivity (K s ) (82.9%), compared with the BL treatment. The OAMB treatment protected against soil water loss during the beginning stages of evaporation and facilitated soil evaporation during the late stages. Interestingly, the soil water condition underneath the OAMB treatment was not improved after the degradation of AO. The A. ordosica with moss biocrusts treatment had 12.7% lower aboveground biomass and 46.0% lower twig biomass than that for the AO treatment, suggesting the negative effects of biocrusts on the growth of artificially planted shrubs. The findings have important implications for the competitive relationships between biocrusts and vascular vegetation and managing artificial planted shrubs.

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Section: Influence Of Biocrusts On Soil Hydrological Propertiessupporting

confidence: 93%

Section: Influence Of Biocrusts On Vascular Vegetationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Does biocrust successional stage determine the degradation of vascular vegetation via alterations in its hydrological roles in semi‐arid ecosystem?

Guan

Liu

2019

Ecohydrology

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“…Following their establishment, BSCs modify soil physico‐chemical properties (Concostrina‐Zubiri et al., ), in turn affecting the water content of the underlying soil (Kidron & Benenson, ). Hence, we interpret that BSCs have a dominant role controlling subsurface soil moisture in the studied ecosystem, as has been reported in other drylands (Xiao & Hu, ), and we conclude that complementarity between vascular plants and BSCs is essential to regulate water balance.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Linking biological soil crust attributes to the multifunctionality of vegetated patches and interspaces in a semiarid shrubland

2018

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Understanding the importance of biotic community structure on ecosystem functioning, and whether communities inhabiting different microhabitats in highly heterogeneous areas provide different ecological functions is a challenge in ecological research in the face of biodiversity and habitat loss. Biological soil crusts (BSCs) have been largely treated as unique entities, and have been mostly examined in interspaces between perennial plants, limiting current understanding of their role as drivers of ecosystem functioning and their relative contribution in comparison to vascular plants. We assessed the role of BSCs on ecosystem functioning in vegetated patches and interspaces, and how individual soil functions and ecosystem multifunctionality are related to changes in BSC species‐ and community‐level attributes. We contemplated nine ecosystem functions associated with soil water dynamics, nutrient cycling and erosion potential. We found that vegetated patches improve infiltration rates, soil stability and net potential nitrogen (N) mineralization compared to interspaces, and thus dominate multifunctionality. However, well‐developed BSCs improve soil moisture and N pool in both microsites, and are multifunctional stabilizing soils and regulating soil moisture and infiltration in the interspaces. BSC surface microstructure, including changes in total cover, species richness, morphological functional groups and surface discontinuities, has significant effects on soil moisture. Differences in soil N and phosphorous are mostly related to the presence of BSC‐lichens. The effect of BSCs on multifunctionality varies in dependence of the particular set of functions that are sought to simultaneously maximize. Our results suggest that vascular plants and BSCs have idiosyncratic effects on different key ecosystem functions and multifunction, and BSCs substitute vascular plants in stabilizing soils and regulating water dynamics in the interspaces. BSCs greatly contribute to small‐scale heterogeneity in the functioning of vegetated patches and interspaces, hence consideration of BSCs in different microsites is essential for enhancing our understanding of their functional relevance at a regional scale. In addition, quantification of BSC microstructure is crucial, owing to the contrasting effects of BSC species‐ and community‐level attributes on different functions and multifunction. A http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2435.13044/suppinfo is available for this article.

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“…Additionally biocrusts may have positive or negative interactions with vascular plants (Reisner et al 2013;Kidron 2014;Xiao and Hu 2017;Xiao and Veste 2017). Of particular regional importance, biocrusts may reduce the germination or establishment of annual weeds such as Bromus tectorum (Zaady et al 2003;Condon and Pyke 2016).…”

Section: Biocrust Conservation and Restoration Tools And Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Insolation and disturbance history drive biocrust biodiversity in Western Montana rangelands

Durham¹,

Doherty

Antoninka

et al. 2018

Plant Soil

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Background and Aims Biological soil crust (biocrust) communities, though common and important in the intermountain west, have received little research attention. There are gaps in understanding what influences biocrust species' abundance and distributions in this ecoregion. Climatic, edaphic, topographic, and biotic forces, in addition to anthropogenic disturbance can all influence the biocrust. Methods We determined the relative influence of several possible environmental filters in biocrust communities of western Montana (USA) grasslands at two spatial scales. The larger scale exploited strong topographically-dictated climatic variation across >60km 2 , while the smaller scale focused on differences among distinct microsites withiñ 700m 2 plots. Results We detected a total of 96 biocrust taxa, mostly lichens. Biocrust richness at each site ranged from 0 to 39 species, averaging 14 species. Insolation, aspect, and disturbance history were the strongest predictors of biocrust richness, abundance, and species turnover across the landscape; soil texture was influential for some biocrust community properties. Steep, northfacing slopes that receive longer periods of shade harbored higher diversity and cover of biocrust than southfacing sites. At a small scale, interspaces among native herbaceous communities supported the greatest diversity of biocrust species, but microsites under shrub canopies supported the greatest cover. Conclusions We found that, among the variables investigated, tillage, insolation, soil texture and the associated vegetation community were the most important drivers of biocrust abundance and species richness. This study can inform the practice of restoration and conservation, and also guide future work to improve predictions of biocrust properties.

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Moss-dominated biocrusts decrease soil moisture and result in the degradation of artificially planted shrubs under semiarid climate

Cited by 80 publications

References 56 publications

Does biocrust successional stage determine the degradation of vascular vegetation via alterations in its hydrological roles in semi‐arid ecosystem?

Does biocrust successional stage determine the degradation of vascular vegetation via alterations in its hydrological roles in semi‐arid ecosystem?

Linking biological soil crust attributes to the multifunctionality of vegetated patches and interspaces in a semiarid shrubland

Insolation and disturbance history drive biocrust biodiversity in Western Montana rangelands

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