Inferring the impact of rainfall gradient on biocrusts’ developmental stage and thus on soil physical structures in sand dunes

Zaady, Eli; Katra, Itzhak; Yizhaq, Hezi; Kinast, Shai; Ashkenazy, Yosef

doi:10.1016/j.aeolia.2014.04.002

Cited by 43 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…This suggests that other factors contribute to the development of WR. Some studies showed that development stages of BSCs are responsible for strongly varying hydrological behavior (Drahorad et al, 2013b;Rodríguez-Caballero et al, 2012;Yair et al, 2011;Zaady et al, 2014). Lichner et al (2013) showed that species composition had a strong effect on the development of WR.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Only on the north-facing dune slopes, where higher amounts of moisture are available thicker crusts (2-4 mm) with lichens or mosses of type C to E can be found (Kidron et al, 2010;Kidron and Benenson, 2014). Not only within the individual sites the crust types change according to the moisture regime but also along the precipitation gradient (Almog and Yair, 2007;Hagemann et al, 2014;Yair et al, 2011;Zaady et al, 2014). With higher amounts of available water in the interdunes of N84 and N69 BSCs of type C, D and E are more common.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Biological soil crusts cause subcritical water repellency in a sand dune ecosystem located along a rainfall gradient in the NW Negev desert, Israel

Keck¹,

Felde

Drahorad

et al. 2016

Journal of Hydrology and Hydromechanics

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Abstract:The biological soil crusts (BSCs) in the NW Negev cause local water redistribution by increasing surface runoff. The effects of pore clogging and swelling of organic and inorganic crust components were intensively investigated in earlier studies. However, the effect of water repellency (WR) was not addressed systematically yet. This study investigates subcritical WR of BSCs in three different study sites in the NW Negev. For this purpose, three common methods to determine soil WR were used: (i) the repellency index (RI) method (ii) the water drop penetration time (WDPT) test and (iii) the Wilhelmy plate method (WPM). Furthermore, the potential influence of WR on local water redistribution is discussed and the applied methods are compared. We found the BSC to be subcritically water repellent. The degree of WR may only affect water redistribution on a microscale and has little influence on the ecosystem as a whole. The RI method was clearly the most appropriate to use, whereas the WDPT and the WPM failed to detect subcritical WR.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biological soil crusts cause subcritical water repellency in a sand dune ecosystem located along a rainfall gradient in the NW Negev desert, Israel

Keck¹,

Felde

Drahorad

et al. 2016

Journal of Hydrology and Hydromechanics

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“…The decreased production resulting from crust patch expansion indicates desertification processes in our study area as a result of high frequency drought events [87]. Therefore, we suggest that CI could be an effective indicator for detecting large-scale desertification processes due to climate change and as a tool for studying biocrust dynamics [84].…”

Section: Spatial and Temporal Changes Of Biocrust Covermentioning

confidence: 96%

“…The reduction in the woody vegetation patches and the biocrust expansion increased resource leakage in the ecosystem on the small, as we already indicated [7,11,83], and the large scale. Several studies have shown that on a sandy substrate, biocrusts stabilize shifting dunes [84]. However, on a loess substrate, as in our case, biocrusts increase resource and nutrient loss with runoff [28,44,85] and reduce the ability of plants to germinate [86].…”

Section: Spatial and Temporal Changes Of Biocrust Covermentioning

confidence: 99%

Structural Changes of Desertified and Managed Shrubland Landscapes in Response to Drought: Spectral, Spatial and Temporal Analyses

et al. 2014

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Drought events cause changes in ecosystem function and structure by reducing the shrub abundance and expanding the biological soil crusts (biocrusts). This change increases the leakage of nutrient resources and water into the river streams in semi-arid areas. A common management solution for decreasing this loss of resources is to create a runoff-harvesting system (RHS). The objective of the current research is to apply geo-information techniques, including remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS), on the watershed scale, to monitor and analyze the spatial and temporal changes in response to drought of two source-sink systems, the natural shrubland and the human-made RHSs in the semi-arid area of the northern Negev Desert, Israel. This was done by evaluating the changes in soil, vegetation and landscape cover. The spatial changes were evaluated by three spectral indices: Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Crust Index (CI) and landscape classification change between 2003 and 2010. In addition, we examined the effects of environmental factors on NDVI, CI and their clustering after successive drought years. The results show that vegetation cover indicates a negative ∆NDVI change due to a reduction in the abundance of woody vegetation. On the other hand, the soil cover change data indicate a positive ∆CI change due to the expansion of the biocrusts. These two trends are evidence for degradation processes in terms of resource conservation and bio-production. A considerable part of the changed area (39%) represents OPEN ACCESSRemote Sens. 2014, 6 8135 transitions between redistribution processes of resources, such as water, sediments, nutrients and seeds, on the watershed scale. In the pre-drought period, resource redistribution mainly occurred on the slope scale, while in the post-drought period, resource redistribution occurred on the whole watershed scale. However, the RHS management is effective in reducing leakage, since these systems are located on the slopes where the magnitude of runoff pulses is low.

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“…9.1a), and in sandy soils layering may be observed. With higher cyanobacterial abundance in flat crusts, the physical status of the soil changes, for example, by having finer grain sizes, lower infiltration rates, lower soil moisture contents, and an almost four times higher breaking pressure (Zaady et al 2014). On the other hand, cracks in cyanobacterial crusts, that either derive from frost or biogenic (Fig.…”

Section: Biocrust Structure: Biotic Influencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Composition and Macrostructure of Biological Soil Crusts

2016

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Inferring the impact of rainfall gradient on biocrusts’ developmental stage and thus on soil physical structures in sand dunes

Cited by 43 publications

References 46 publications

Biological soil crusts cause subcritical water repellency in a sand dune ecosystem located along a rainfall gradient in the NW Negev desert, Israel

Biological soil crusts cause subcritical water repellency in a sand dune ecosystem located along a rainfall gradient in the NW Negev desert, Israel

Structural Changes of Desertified and Managed Shrubland Landscapes in Response to Drought: Spectral, Spatial and Temporal Analyses

Composition and Macrostructure of Biological Soil Crusts

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