ArticleGlobal change biology2013
Changes in biocrust cover drive carbon cycle responses to climate change in drylands.
Article in Global change biology, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 40 papers.
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Who cites it
40 citing papers in PubMed.
- Climate and biocrust types jointly regulate soil multifunctionality and quality in drylands: evidence from the Gurbantunggut Desert.Frontiers in plant science · 2026Article
- Lichens in times of climate change - impacts and responses especially in boreal and polar ecosystems.MycoKeys · 2026Review
- The Desert in Bottles: The Culturable Microbiome of the Atacama Desert's Grit Crust.Environmental microbiology reports · 2025Article
- Biocrusts alter the effects of long-term warming on soil respiration in a dryland ecosystem.Geoderma · 2025Article
- A Large Fraction of Soil Microbial Taxa Is Sensitive to Experimental Warming.Global change biology · 2025Article
- Novel endophytic fungus Leptosphaeria sp. strain T-2 improves plant growth and environmental stress tolerance.Stress biology · 2024Article
- Continuous monitoring of chlorophyllPlant and soil · 2023Article
- Patterns in biocrust recovery over time in semiarid southeast Spain.Frontiers in microbiology · 2023Article
- Biocrust carbon exchange varies with crust type and time on Chihuahuan Desert gypsum soils.Frontiers in microbiology · 2023Article
- What is a biocrust? A refined, contemporary definition for a broadening research community.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2022Review
- Biocrusts increase the resistance to warming-induced increases in topsoil P pools.The Journal of ecology · 2022Article
- Decline in biological soil crust N-fixing lichens linked to increasing summertime temperatures.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- Spatial cover and carbon fluxes of urbanized Sonoran Desert biological soil crusts.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Effect of Straw and Wood Ash on Soil Carbon Sequestration and Bacterial Community in a Calcareous Soil.Frontiers in microbiology · 2022Article
- Epigenetic and Phenotypic Responses to Experimental Climate Change of Native and InvasiveFrontiers in plant science · 2022Article
- Biological Crusts to Increase Soil Carbon Sequestration: New Challenges in a New Environment.Biology · 2021Article
- UAV RGB, thermal infrared and multispectral imagery used to investigate the control of terrain on the spatial distribution of dryland biocrust.Earth surface processes and landforms · 2021Article
- Epigenetic responses of hare barley (Hordeum murinum subsp. leporinum) to climate change: an experimental, trait-based approach.Heredity · 2021Article
- Symbiosis and the Anthropocene.Symbiosis (Philadelphia, Pa.) · 2021Article
- Biocrusts buffer against the accumulation of soil metallic nutrients induced by warming and rainfall reduction.Communications biology · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Dryland ecosystems account for ca. 27% of global soil organic carbon (C) reserves, yet it is largely unknown how climate change will impact C cycling and storage in these areas. In drylands, soil C concentrates at the surface, making it particularly sensitive to the activity of organisms inhabiting the soil uppermost levels, such as communities dominated by lichens, mosses, bacteria and fungi (biocrusts). We conducted a full factorial warming and rainfall exclusion experiment at two semiarid sites in Spain to show how an average increase of air temperature of 2-3 °C promoted a drastic reduction in biocrust cover (ca. 44% in 4 years). Warming significantly increased soil CO2 efflux, and reduced soil net CO2 uptake, in biocrust-dominated microsites. Losses of biocrust cover with warming through time were paralleled by increases in recalcitrant C sources, such as aromatic compounds, and in the abundance of fungi relative to bacteria. The dramatic reduction in biocrust cover with warming will lessen the capacity of drylands to sequester atmospheric CO2 . This decrease may act synergistically with other warming-induced effects, such as the increase in soil CO2 efflux and the changes in microbial communities to alter C cycling in drylands, and to reduce soil C stocks in the mid to long term.
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