Microfauna Within Biological Soil Crusts

Darby, Brian J.; Neher, Deborah A.

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-30214-0_8

Cited by 18 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 76 publications

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“…Thus, we conclude that soil microbiota >0.45 μm in size may be key regulators of N transfer in drylands. Microarthropods can affect soil resource cycling (Darby & Neher, ), and their movement between biocrusts and rooting zone soil may have been impeded by our mesh. Prokaryotes that travelled along fungal hyphae (Warmink et al, ) could still pass through both mesh types, but these microbes would lack fungal highways in the 0.45 μm mesh treatment and any movement using the fungal network would be impeded.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fungal connections between plants and biocrusts facilitate plants but have little effect on biocrusts

2019

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1. Species interactions may couple the resource dynamics of different primary producers and may enhance productivity by reducing loss from the system. In low-resource systems, this biotic control may be especially important for maintaining productivity. In drylands, the activities of vascular plants and biological soil crusts can be decoupled in space because biocrusts grow on the soil surface but plant roots are underground, and decoupled in time due to biocrusts activating with smaller precipitation events than plants. Soil fungi are hypothesized to functionally couple the plants and biocrusts by transporting nutrients. We studied whether disrupting fungi between biocrusts and plants reduces nitrogen transfer and retention and decreases primary production as predicted by the fungal loop hypothesis. Additionally, we compared varying precipitation regimes that can drive different timing and depth of biological activities.2. We used field mesocosms in which the potential for fungal connections between biocrusts and roots remained intact or were impeded by mesh. We imposed a precipitation regime of small, frequent or large, infrequent rain events. We used 15 N to track fungal-mediated nitrogen (N) transfer. We quantified microbial carbon use efficiency and plant and biocrust production and N content. Fungal connections with biocrusts benefitted plant biomass and nutrient retentionunder favourable (large, infrequent) precipitation regimes but not under stressful (small, frequent) regimes, demonstrating context dependency in the fungal loop.Translocation of a 15 N tracer from biocrusts to roots was marginally lower when fungal connections were impeded than intact. Under large, infrequent rains, when fungal connections were intact, the C:N of leaves converged towards the C:N of biocrusts, suggesting higher N retention in the plant, and plant above-ground biomass was greater relative to the fungal connections-impeded treatment. Carbon use efficiency in both biocrust and rooting zone soil was less C-limited when connections were intact than impeded, again only in the large, infrequent precipitation regime. Synthesis.Although we did not find evidence of a reciprocal transfer of C and N between plants and biocrusts, plant production was benefited by fungal connections with biocrusts under favourable conditions. | 895 Journal of Ecology DETTWEILER-ROBINSON ET aL. | 901 Journal of Ecology DETTWEILER-ROBINSON ET aL. | 907 Journal of Ecology DETTWEILER-ROBINSON ET aL. and function in two successional stages of biological soil crusts from the Colorado Plateau and Chihuahuan Desert. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 70(2), 973-983. https ://doi.Additional supporting information may be found online in the Supporting Information section. How to cite this article: Dettweiler-Robinson E, Sinsabaugh RL, Rudgers JA. Fungal connections between plants and biocrusts facilitate plants but have little effect on biocrusts. J Ecol. 2020;108:894-907. https ://doi.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fungal connections between plants and biocrusts facilitate plants but have little effect on biocrusts

2019

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“…Biocrusts are inconspicuous communities, mainly dominated by photosynthesizing cyanobacteria, algae, lichens, or bryophytes that can survive during long drought periods in a dormant state and rapidly become active after small water pulses [2]. These traits allow biocrusts to fix a large amount of atmospheric carbon and nitrogen [3,4], which becomes incorporated within the upper layer of the soil to be used by heterotrophic fungi, bacteria, archaea [5], and other soil surface inhabitants [6,7]. As a result, they improve soil fertility [8] and other soil properties, such as surface stability and soil water retention capacity [9][10][11][12], preventing degradation processes and maintaining the ecosystem capacities to provide multiple services to society [13].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spectral Response Analysis: An Indirect and Non-Destructive Methodology for the Chlorophyll Quantification of Biocrusts

et al. 2019

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Chlorophyll a concentration (Chla) is a well-proven proxy of biocrust development, photosynthetic organisms' status, and recovery monitoring after environmental disturbances. However, laboratory methods for the analysis of chlorophyll require destructive sampling and are expensive and time consuming. Indirect estimation of chlorophyll a by means of soil surface reflectance analysis has been demonstrated to be an accurate, cheap, and quick alternative for chlorophyll retrieval information, especially in plants. However, its application to biocrusts has yet to be harnessed. In this study we evaluated the potential of soil surface reflectance measurements for non-destructive Chla quantification over a range of biocrust types and soils. Our results revealed that from the different spectral transformation methods and techniques, the first derivative of the reflectance and the continuum removal were the most accurate for Chla retrieval. Normalized difference values in the red-edge region and common broadband indexes (e.g., normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI)) were also sensitive to changes in Chla. However, such approaches should be carefully adapted to each specific biocrust type. On the other hand, the combination of spectral measurements with non-linear random forest (RF) models provided very good fits (R 2 > 0.94) with a mean root mean square error (RMSE) of about 6.5 µg/g soil, and alleviated the need for a specific calibration for each crust type, opening a wide range of opportunities to advance our knowledge of biocrust responses to ongoing global change and degradation processes from anthropogenic disturbance.

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“…Biological soil crusts (BSCs) are the dominant vegetation cover on the temporarily snow- and ice-free soil surfaces of the Arctic and Antarctica (Yoshitake et al, 2010; Williams et al, 2017). These communities are complex agglomerations formed by diverse autotrophic and heterotrophic organisms such as microalgae, lichens, bryophytes, fungi, bacteria, and micro fauna (Belnap, 2006; Darby and Neher, 2016). The streptophyte green microalga Klebsormidium (Klebsormidiophyceae) is commonly associated with BSCs in both the Arctic and Antarctica (Hayashi and Shinozaki, 2012; Pushkareva et al, 2016; Borchhardt et al, 2017a,b; Rippin et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cold Acclimation Improves the Desiccation Stress Resilience of Polar Strains of Klebsormidium (Streptophyta)

et al. 2019

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Biological soil crusts (BSCs) are complex communities of autotrophic, heterotrophic, and saprotrophic (micro)organisms. In the polar regions, these biocrust communities have essential ecological functions such as primary production, nitrogen fixation, and ecosystem engineering while coping with extreme environmental conditions (temperature, desiccation, and irradiation). The microalga Klebsormidium is commonly found in BSCs all across the globe. The ecophysiological resilience of various Klebsormidium species to desiccation and other stresses has been studied intensively. Here we present the results of transcriptomic analyses of two different Klebsormidium species, K. dissectum and K. flaccidum , isolated from Antarctic and Arctic BSCs. We performed desiccation stress experiments at two different temperatures mimicking fluctuations associated with global change. Cultures grown on agar plates were desiccated on membrane filters at 10% relative air humidity until the photosynthetic activity as reflected in the effective quantum yield of photosystem II [Y(II)] ceased. For both species, the response to dehydration was much faster at the higher temperature. At the transcriptome level both species responded more strongly to the desiccation stress at the higher temperature suggesting that adaptation to cold conditions enhanced the resilience of both algae to desiccation stress. Interestingly, the two different species responded differently to the applied desiccation stress with respect to the number as well as function of genes showing differential gene expression. The portion of differentially expressed genes shared between both taxa was surprisingly low indicating that both Klebsormidium species adapted independently to the harsh conditions of Antarctica and the Arctic, respectively. Overall, our results indicate that environmental acclimation has a great impact on gene expression and the response to desiccation stress in Klebsormidium .

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Microfauna Within Biological Soil Crusts

Cited by 18 publications

References 76 publications

Fungal connections between plants and biocrusts facilitate plants but have little effect on biocrusts

Fungal connections between plants and biocrusts facilitate plants but have little effect on biocrusts

Spectral Response Analysis: An Indirect and Non-Destructive Methodology for the Chlorophyll Quantification of Biocrusts

Cold Acclimation Improves the Desiccation Stress Resilience of Polar Strains of Klebsormidium (Streptophyta)

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