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.
Studies of degraded semiarid regions have shown that organic residue addition is a sound restoration alternative. We examined the effects of a single dose (40 Mg ha −1 ) of biosolids compost (BC) and compost of the organic fraction of municipal solid waste (MC) 6 years after they were applied to a sandy soil of NW Patagonia. Results were compared with those of inorganic fertilization (IF, 100 kg N+35 kg P ha −1 ) treatment and of unamended control. We measured plant cover, biomass, and diversity and chemical, biological, and biochemical soil properties. We did not find any significant effect of treatments on plant attributes. However, effects on soil properties were significant and more persistent with composts than with IF, especially with BC, which had higher organic C and nutrients than MC. Total soil C and N were twice as high in the BC-amended soil as in the control and IF soils. Soil extractable P was 4-fold and 2-fold higher in BCand MC-treated soils, respectively, than in the control soil, and even higher than in the IF treatment in response to BC. The highest β-glucosidase and acid phosphomonoesterase activities were found in the BC-treated soil, related to higher C and P in the soil and to higher activities of both enzymes in the biosolids compost. The highest phenol oxidase activity was found in MC and in the MC-treated soil. Potential respiration and K 2 SO 4 -extractable C were higher in the compost-treated soil, but there was no difference in microbial biomass C between the compost-treated and the control soils. Despite the fact that the soil was coarse textured and a single moderate dose of compost was applied, recovery of soil chemical, microbiological, and biochemical properties was long-lasting, indicating that application of urban compost is a feasible restoration practice in this semiarid region.
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