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Thursday, June 20, 2013

New paper (SBB): Biological soil crust community types differ in key ecological functions


Nicole Pietrasiak et al. measure contributions of 8 types of Mojave Desert biocrusts to ecosystem functions: N-fixation, C-fixation, and soil aggregate stability
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0038071713001831
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3 comments:

  1. UnknownJune 25, 2013 at 11:11 PM

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  2. UnknownJune 27, 2013 at 4:10 PM

    Too bad they didn't observe any dark cyano dominated crusts, it would've been nice to compare to the mosses. Still, pretty awesome that the moss communities are still fixing so much N.

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    1. Matthew BowkerJune 30, 2013 at 11:52 AM

      Yeah, the moss-cyano connection seems much stronger than I ever thought.

      So it seems like rough moss is fairly pure Syntrichia, hairy moss is Pterygoneurum, and dark moss is kind of a 50/50 Syntrichia and dark cyano crust?

      This paper seems to show that the moss component has been underestimated from a multi functionality standpoint.

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