Forest-Rangeland Soil Ecology Lab: Bowker lab - check us out at ESA next month

Forest-Rangeland Soil Ecology Lab: Bowker lab - check us out at ESA next month: Next month lab members will present new research at the Ecological Society of America Meeting in Sacramento . Kyle Doherty will ...

Post-doc job announcement in Barger Lab, University of Colorado Boulder

Post-Doctoral Research Associate – University of Colorado Boulder – Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

A two-year post-doctoral research associate position will be available in Nichole Barger’s lab at the University of Colorado – Boulder. The successful candidate will work on a newly funded project to examine plant and soil responses to biological soil crust restoration. The post-doctoral research associate will oversee field research at Hill Air Force Base in the Great Basin and Jornada Experimental Range in the Chihuahuan Desert. This work will occur in close collaboration with an interdisciplinary team of scientists who specialize in soil microbiology (Ferran Garcia-Pichel, Arizona State University), soil ecology (Matthew Bowker, Northern Arizona University and Jayne Belnap USGS), ecosystem ecology (Sasha Reed, USG) and soil science (Mike Duniway, USGS).  We are seeking a highly motivated and energetic applicant with specialties in ecosystem ecology/biogeochemistry, plant ecology, or soil ecology. Expertise in aridland ecology is a plus.  The start date is flexible ranging from December 2014 through February 2015. If you are interested please send a brief letter of interest and a current CV to Nichole Barger at nichole.barger@colorado.edu.

Direct and indirect impacts of climate change on microbial and biocrust communities alter the resistance of the N cycle in a semiarid grassland DelgadoBaquerizo Journal of Ecology Wiley Online Library

Direct and indirect impacts of climate change on microbial and biocrust communities alter the resistance of the N cycle in a semiarid grassland DelgadoBaquerizo Journal of Ecology Wiley Online Library


Nice new work from Manu in Journal of Ecology

Maestre Lab: Recently accepted articles from the lab

Recent biocrust work led by Raul Ochoa Hueso and Miguel Berdugo see below





Maestre Lab: Recently accepted articles from the lab: Three new papers from the lab have been accepted during the last weeks. They will be published online early during the next weeks/mont...

Biocrusts in El Malpais National Monument, New Mexico

It's that time again…photo dumps from trips taken months ago! Last Spring I joined my graduate student Jesse, and two collaborators from the National Park Service on a trip to El Malpais in New Mexico.  Jesse is working on establishing an array of monitoring plots for "unique plant communities" which are important reservoirs of biodiversity in the National Park System. 

El Malpais is a National Monument built around a series of lava flows. One cool thing about it is that the lava flows left islands of pre-existing soils. Because much of the lava is a'a, its is very difficult to traverse. The Monument resource manager, David Hayes told us there were 2 kinds of people who work at the Monument: 1. those who have hurt themselves on the lava, 2. those that will hurt themselves on the lava. This works for cows too, so the islands or "kipukas" have experienced much less disturbance historically. So in addition to selecting unique plant communities to sample, I was very intrigued to see what the biocrusts looked like in the kipukas. I had envisioned some kind of sandy soils with grasslands or woodlands. Instead, the soils were derived of older basalt, and sure enough there were plenty of biocrusts. There are a ton of places, especially in the Great Basin and Colombia Basin where basalt soils support biocrusts. But for some reason, despite much looking, I have never seen biocrusts on basalt soils on the Colorado Plateau…until El Malpais. From that moment on, I was hopelessly fascinated to see more soils. In addition to lava of different ages, there are sedimentary rocks which develop into very different soils with very different communities. Very cool place.

Maybe the coolest thing I learned was from Jesse. A Navajo story recounts the monster killing exploits of the hero twins. One of the monsters they killed was walking giant. The lava flows are the blood of walking giant. 

Appears to be a Leptogium, anyone able to ID from the picture?

Collema tenax and a Placidium species growing together as they often do.

Collema coccophorum; note the slightly reddish disks are apothecia.

A Psora species, probably globifera.

The lava flows are riddled with lava tubes. When lava is flowing the exterior may begin to harden, while the center is still liquid and able to drain out leaving tubes.

Inside a tube!

Earth-like soils on Mars? Ancient fossilized soils potentially found deep inside impact crater suggest microbial life -- ScienceDaily

Earth-like soils on Mars? Ancient fossilized soils potentially found deep inside impact crater suggest microbial life -- ScienceDaily

This out recently from the same scientist that reinterpreted the Ediacaran fauna as terrestrial lichens, fungi and biocrusts, http://geodermatophilia.blogspot.com/2012/12/very-early-life-on-land-just-who-is.html