Climate change and physical disturbance cause similar community shifts in biological soil crusts
Abstract
In biological soil crusts (biocrusts)—communities of mosses, lichens, cyanobacteria, and heterotrophs living at the soil surface— fundamental components of drylands worldwide, and destruction of biocrusts dramatically alters biogeochemical processes, hydrology, surface energy balance, and vegetation cover are present.Though there has been long-standing concern over impacts of physical disturbances on biocrusts (e.g., trampling by livestock, damage from vehicles), there is increasing concern over the potential for climate change to alter biocrust community structure. Using long-term data from the Colorado Plateau, in this paper we examined the effects of 10 y of experimental warming and altered precipitation (in full-factorial design) on biocrust communities and compared the effects of altered climate with those of long-term physical disturbance (>10 y of replicated human trampling). Surprisingly, altered climate and physical disturbance treatments had similar effects on biocrust community structure. Warming, altered precipitation frequency [an increase of small (1.2 mm) summer rainfall events], and physical disturbance from trampling all promoted early successional community states marked by dramatic declines in moss cover and increases in cyanobacteria cover, with more variable effects on lichens. Although the pace of community change varied significantly among treatments, these results suggest that multiple aspects of climate change will affect biocrusts to themore »
- Authors:
-
- Southwest Biological Science Center, US Geological Survey, Moab, UT 84532
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- US Geological Survey, Moab, UT (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1235123
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1348913
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC-0008168; SC0008168
- Resource Type:
- Published Article
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Name: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America Journal Volume: 112 Journal Issue: 39; Journal ID: ISSN 0027-8424
- Publisher:
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; alternate states; biocrusts; community structure; secondary succession; warming
Citation Formats
Ferrenberg, Scott, Reed, Sasha C., and Belnap, Jayne. Climate change and physical disturbance cause similar community shifts in biological soil crusts. United States: N. p., 2015.
Web. doi:10.1073/pnas.1509150112.
Ferrenberg, Scott, Reed, Sasha C., & Belnap, Jayne. Climate change and physical disturbance cause similar community shifts in biological soil crusts. United States. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1509150112
Ferrenberg, Scott, Reed, Sasha C., and Belnap, Jayne. Mon .
"Climate change and physical disturbance cause similar community shifts in biological soil crusts". United States. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1509150112.
@article{osti_1235123,
title = {Climate change and physical disturbance cause similar community shifts in biological soil crusts},
author = {Ferrenberg, Scott and Reed, Sasha C. and Belnap, Jayne},
abstractNote = {In biological soil crusts (biocrusts)—communities of mosses, lichens, cyanobacteria, and heterotrophs living at the soil surface— fundamental components of drylands worldwide, and destruction of biocrusts dramatically alters biogeochemical processes, hydrology, surface energy balance, and vegetation cover are present.Though there has been long-standing concern over impacts of physical disturbances on biocrusts (e.g., trampling by livestock, damage from vehicles), there is increasing concern over the potential for climate change to alter biocrust community structure. Using long-term data from the Colorado Plateau, in this paper we examined the effects of 10 y of experimental warming and altered precipitation (in full-factorial design) on biocrust communities and compared the effects of altered climate with those of long-term physical disturbance (>10 y of replicated human trampling). Surprisingly, altered climate and physical disturbance treatments had similar effects on biocrust community structure. Warming, altered precipitation frequency [an increase of small (1.2 mm) summer rainfall events], and physical disturbance from trampling all promoted early successional community states marked by dramatic declines in moss cover and increases in cyanobacteria cover, with more variable effects on lichens. Although the pace of community change varied significantly among treatments, these results suggest that multiple aspects of climate change will affect biocrusts to the same degree as physical disturbance. Finally, this is particularly disconcerting in the context of warming, as temperatures for drylands are projected to increase beyond those imposed as treatments in our study.},
doi = {10.1073/pnas.1509150112},
journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America},
number = 39,
volume = 112,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon Sep 14 00:00:00 EDT 2015},
month = {Mon Sep 14 00:00:00 EDT 2015}
}
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https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1509150112
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