New research shows ClimateChange is destroying the integrity of Earth’s “biocrust,” made up of essential fungi, lichens, mosses, blue-green algae, and other microbes.
The U.S. Southwest is rapidly warming, and Canyonlands is no exception, says USGS ecologist Rebecca Finger-Higgens, who led the analysis. Weather measurements over the past 50 years reveal temperatures in that park have increased 0.27°C each decade, and recent summers have been particularly warm., particularly the kinds that help convert nitrogen in the air to a form organisms can use, Finger-Higgens and her team report today in the.
When biocrusts disappear, soils dry out and are more likely to blow away. A biocrust that hangs on but with fewer lichens will produce less nitrogen fertilizer, and so fewer plants may be able to survive, leaving ever more bare ground. Because the animals rely on the plants that rely on nutrients from the biocrust, the loss of biocrust can have a cascading effect on the entire ecosystem, Finger-Higgens says.
Efforts are underway to grow biocrusts and transplant them to disturbed places, but even these might not produce enough nutrients to sustain drylands life. “Good results have been obtained for growing [blue-green algae] and mosses, but still not for lichens,” says Mónica Ladrón de Guevara, a dryland ecologist at the Arid Zones Experimental Station in Almería, Spain.
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