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Natural recovery rates of moss biocrusts after severe disturbance in a semiarid climate of the Chinese Loess Plateau

  • Biocrusts are vulnerable to large scale disturbances including trampling activities, and their recovery rates are highly variable with estimates fluctuating by more than one order of magnitude, from<5 years (very fast) to>250 years (very slow). Also, the development of microbial abundance and community diversity of biocrusts after disturbances is poorly understood. In a semiarid climate of the Chinese Loess Plateau, we conducted a recovery experiment on well-developed moss biocrusts after a severe disturbance, during which the entire upper 3 cm of the surface was removed. In the following nine years, the general characteristics and microbial community of the recovering and undisturbed biocrusts as well as a substrate with no crust (bare sand) were periodically determined. Through linear or logistic extrapolation of the observed recovery rates, the recovery time of the biocrusts after disturbance was estimated by both biocrust characteristics and microbial community. Recovery time yielded the following estimates: a) coverage within 3Biocrusts are vulnerable to large scale disturbances including trampling activities, and their recovery rates are highly variable with estimates fluctuating by more than one order of magnitude, from<5 years (very fast) to>250 years (very slow). Also, the development of microbial abundance and community diversity of biocrusts after disturbances is poorly understood. In a semiarid climate of the Chinese Loess Plateau, we conducted a recovery experiment on well-developed moss biocrusts after a severe disturbance, during which the entire upper 3 cm of the surface was removed. In the following nine years, the general characteristics and microbial community of the recovering and undisturbed biocrusts as well as a substrate with no crust (bare sand) were periodically determined. Through linear or logistic extrapolation of the observed recovery rates, the recovery time of the biocrusts after disturbance was estimated by both biocrust characteristics and microbial community. Recovery time yielded the following estimates: a) coverage within 3 years, b) thickness within 8 years, c) biomass within 9–13 years, and d) cultivable microbial density within 11–13 years. More importantly, the recovery time of the disturbed moss-biocrusts estimated by the number of bacteria and fungi was ~10 and 20 years, respectively, and that estimated by the bacterial and fungal community diversity was 12–14 and 12–16 years, respectively. In conclusion, moss biocrusts would take 15–20 years to achieve full recovery, which was shorter than many previously published estimates that regarded biocrusts and especially moss-dominated biocrusts to have a long recovery time of hundreds of years. However, it should be also kept in mind that very fast recovery (< 5 years) of biocrusts was less reliable because such estimations are mostly based on visual cover only rather than on the multi-variables of the recovering biocrusts.show moreshow less

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Metadaten
Author: Bo Xiao, Kelin Hu, Maik VesteORCiD, Giora J. Kidron
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2018.09.054
ISSN:0016-7061
Title of the source (English):Geoderma
Document Type:Scientific journal article peer-reviewed
Language:English
Year of publication:2019
Volume/Year:337
First Page:402
Last Page:412
Faculty/Chair:Fakultät 2 Umwelt und Naturwissenschaften / FG Bodenschutz und Rekultivierung
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