Biocrusts control the nitrogen dynamics and microbial functional diversity of semi-arid soils in response to nutrient additions

Delgado‐Baquerizo, Manuel; Morillas, Lourdes; Maestre, Fernando T.; Gallardo, Antonio

doi:10.1007/s11104-013-1779-9

Cited by 53 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…Finally, nutrient additions seemed to be important for biomass yield in some samples but not in all. Literature reports also give a somewhat contradictory picture regarding nutrient effects on biocrust development, one that includes some negative (32,53,54) and some positive effects (52). It stands to reason that differences in soil nutrient content may determine whether nutrient amendments will be needed to obtain high yields or not.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microbial Nursery Production of High-Quality Biological Soil Crust Biomass for Restoration of Degraded Dryland Soils

Ayuso

Giraldo-Silva

Nelson

et al. 2017

Appl Environ Microbiol

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Biological soil crusts (biocrusts) are slow-growing, phototroph-based microbial assemblages that develop on the topsoils of drylands. Biocrusts help maintain soil fertility and reduce erosion. Because their loss through human activities has negative ecological and environmental health consequences, biocrust restoration is of interest. Active soil inoculation with biocrust microorganisms can be an important tool in this endeavor. We present a culture-independent, two-step process to grow multispecies biocrusts in open greenhouse nursery facilities, based on the inoculation of local soils with local biocrust remnants and incubation under seminatural conditions that maintain the essence of the habitat but lessen its harshness. In each of four U.S. Southwest sites, we tested and deployed combinations of factors that maximized growth (gauged as chlorophyll a content) while minimizing microbial community shifts (assessed by 16S rRNA sequencing and bioinformatics), particularly for crust-forming cyanobacteria. Generally, doubling the frequency of natural wetting events, a 60% reduction in sunlight, and inoculation by slurry were optimal. Nutrient addition effects were site specific. In 4 months, our approach yielded crusts of high inoculum quality reared on local soil exposed to locally matched climates, acclimated to desiccation, and containing communities minimally shifted in composition from local ones. Our inoculum contained abundant crust-forming cyanobacteria and no significant numbers of allochthonous phototrophs, and it was sufficient to treat ca. 6,000 m 2 of degraded dryland soils at 1 to 5% of the typical crust biomass concentration, having started from a natural crust remnant as small as 6 to 30 cm 2 .IMPORTANCE Soil surface crusts can protect dryland soils from erosion, but they are often negatively impacted by human activities. Their degradation causes a loss of fertility, increased production of fugitive dust and intensity of dust storms with associated traffic problems, and provokes general public health hazards. Our results constitute an advance in the quest to actively restore biological soil covers by providing a means to obtain high-quality inoculum within a reasonable time (a few months), thereby allowing land managers to recover essential, but damaged, ecosystem services in a sustainable, self-perpetuating way as provided by biocrust communities.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microbial Nursery Production of High-Quality Biological Soil Crust Biomass for Restoration of Degraded Dryland Soils

Ayuso

Giraldo-Silva

Nelson

et al. 2017

Appl Environ Microbiol

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“…It would be good to understand more of the factors that together influenced the composition and function of BSC bacteria in long-term revegetation, including BSCs, plants, soil biochemical properties and climate conditions, and the microorganisms that in turn have the positive influence on soil improvement (Li et al, 2007b(Li et al, , 2010. Many reports have interpreted correlations among soil properties and BSCs as an indicator that BSCs are drivers of soil fertility and development (Chamizo et al, 2012;Delgado-Baquerizo, 2013;Yu et al, 2014;Zhang et al, 2010); some have reported the opposite and suggest a direct influence of soil properties on BSC development (Belnap et al, 2014;Bowker et al, 2006a;Bowker and Belnap, 2008;Concostrina-Zubiri et al, 2013;Rivera-Aquilar et al, 2009;Root and McCune, 2012;Weber et al, 2016). These are important questions, and parsing out the interactions of BSCs and soil biogeochemical properties remains an important frontier in BSC research.…”

Section: Relationship Between Bacterial Community Shiftmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of bacterial communities in biological soil crusts along a revegetation chronosequence in the Tengger Desert, northwest China

Liu

Zhang

et al. 2017

Biogeosciences

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Abstract. Knowledge of structure and function of microbial communities in different successional stages of biological soil crusts (BSCs) is still scarce for desert areas. In this study, Illumina MiSeq sequencing was used to assess the compositional changes of bacterial communities in different ages of BSCs in the revegetation of Shapotou in the Tengger Desert. The most dominant phyla of bacterial communities shifted with the changed types of BSCs in the successional stages, from Firmicutes in mobile sand and physical crusts to Actinobacteria and Proteobacteria in BSCs, and the most dominant genera shifted from Bacillus, Enterococcus and Lactococcus to RB41_norank and JG34-KF-361_norank. Alpha diversity and quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis indicated that bacterial richness and abundance reached their highest levels after 15 years of BSC development. Redundancy analysis showed that silt + clay content and total K were the prime determinants of the bacterial communities of BSCs. The results suggested that bacterial communities of BSCs recovered quickly with the improved soil physicochemical properties in the early stages of BSC succession. Changes in the bacterial community structure may be an important indicator in the biogeochemical cycling and nutrient storage in early successional stages of BSCs in desert ecosystems.

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“…Biocrusts are potential objects of conservation and agents of restoration in this and other systems because of their many contributions to ecosystem function. Biocrusts protect soil from erosion, fix carbon and nitrogen, moderate temperatures, and influence hydrology and plant growth (Bowker et al 2011;Delgado-Baquerizo et al 2013;Rodríguez-Caballero et al 2015;Zaady et al 2003). Biocrusts are nearly universally sensitive to livestock trampling or other compressive forces, tillage, land surface conversions, and other physical disturbances (Belnap and Lange 2003;Zaady et al 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

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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Biocrusts control the nitrogen dynamics and microbial functional diversity of semi-arid soils in response to nutrient additions

Cited by 53 publications

References 52 publications

Microbial Nursery Production of High-Quality Biological Soil Crust Biomass for Restoration of Degraded Dryland Soils

Microbial Nursery Production of High-Quality Biological Soil Crust Biomass for Restoration of Degraded Dryland Soils

Development of bacterial communities in biological soil crusts along a revegetation chronosequence in the Tengger Desert, northwest China

Insolation and disturbance history drive biocrust biodiversity in Western Montana rangelands

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