Soil Characteristics of Crusted outside and Subcanopy Areas of four Dominant Shrubs in the Negev Desert

The effect of sand grain size on the development of cyanobacterial biocrusts

“…Some of these functions include carbon and nitrogen fixation (Belnap, 2002;Burgheimer et al, 2006a,b;Shields, 1957;Wu et al, 2009;Zaady et al, 1998Zaady et al, , 2000 and profound effects on plant germination (Boeken et al, 2004;Serpe et al, 2006;Zaady et al, 1997). Biocrusts also play a crucial role in geomorphological processes, such as aeolian (Maman et al, 2011;Meir and Tsoar, 1996;Tsoar, 1990), hydrological (Akuja et al, 2003;Eldridge et al, 2002;Ram and Aaron, 2007;Zaady et al, 2014;Zaady, 2005) and pedological processes (Eldridge and Leys, 2003;Zhang et al, 2006). Biocrusts may effectively impede wind and water erosion and water flow; however due to hydrophobic properties and extracellular polysaccharides that act to clog the surface, some biocrusts may also trigger runoff resulting in nutrient and sediment translocation (Belnap, 2006;Zaady et al, 2013).…”