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Carbon Budgets of Biological Soil Crusts at Micro-, Meso-, and Global Scales

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Biological Soil Crusts: An Organizing Principle in Drylands

Part of the book series: Ecological Studies ((ECOLSTUD,volume 226))

Abstract

The importance of biocrusts in the ecology of arid lands across all continents is widely recognized. In spite of this broad distribution, contributions of biocrusts to the global biogeochemical cycles have only recently been considered. While these studies opened a new view on the global role of biocrusts, they also clearly revealed the lack of data for many habitats and of overall standards for measurements and analysis. In order to understand carbon cycling in biocrusts and the progress which has been made during the last 15 years, we offer a multiscale approach covering different climatic regions. We also include a discussion on available measurement techniques at each scale: A microscale section focuses on the individual organism level, including modeling based on the combination of field and lab data. The mesoscale section addresses the CO2 exchange of a complete ecosystem or at the community level. Finally, we consider the contribution of biocrusts at a global scale, giving a general perspective of the most relevant findings regarding the role of biological soil crusts in the global terrestrial carbon cycle.

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Acknowledgments

L.G. Sancho and J. Raggio were supported by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad of Spain (projects CTM2012-38222-C01 and SCIN). Bettina Weber was supported by the Max Planck Society (Nobel Laureate Fellowship) and the German Research Foundation (project WE2393/2). We are especially thankful to Prof. T.G. Allan Green (Universidad Complutense Madrid) for advice and support. JB was supported by USGS Ecosystems program. Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the US Government.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Facultad de Farmacia, Departamento de Biologıa Vegetal II, Universidad Complutense, 28040, Madrid, Spain

    Leopoldo G. Sancho & Jose Raggio

  2. US Geological Survey, Southwest Biological Science Center, Canyonlands Research Station, 2290 S West Resource Blvd, Moab, UT, 84532, USA

    Jayne Belnap

  3. Faculty of Biology, Plant Ecology and Systematics, University of Kaiserslautern, Erwin-Schrödinger-Str. 13, 67663, Kaiserslautern, Germany

    Claudia Colesie

  4. Multiphase Chemistry Department, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Hahn-Meitner-Weg 1, 55128, Mainz, Germany

    Bettina Weber

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  1. Leopoldo G. Sancho
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  2. Jayne Belnap
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  3. Claudia Colesie
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  4. Jose Raggio
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  5. Bettina Weber
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Correspondence to Leopoldo G. Sancho .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Multiphase Chemistry Department, Max Plank Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany

    Bettina Weber

  2. Plant Ecology and Systematics, Department of Biology, University of Kaiserslautern, Kaiserslautern, Germany

    Burkhard Büdel

  3. Southwest Biological Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Moab, Utah, USA

    Jayne Belnap

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Sancho, L.G., Belnap, J., Colesie, C., Raggio, J., Weber, B. (2016). Carbon Budgets of Biological Soil Crusts at Micro-, Meso-, and Global Scales. In: Weber, B., Büdel, B., Belnap, J. (eds) Biological Soil Crusts: An Organizing Principle in Drylands. Ecological Studies, vol 226. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30214-0_15

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