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Dryland photoautotrophic soil surface communities endangered by global change

Nature Geoscience volume 11, pages 185–189 (2018)Cite this article

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Abstract

Photoautotrophic surface communities forming biological soil crusts (biocrusts) are crucial for soil stability as well as water, nutrient and trace gas cycling at regional and global scales. Quantitative information on their global coverage and the environmental factors driving their distribution patterns, however, are not readily available. We use observations and environmental modelling to estimate the global distribution of biocrusts and their response to global change using future projected scenarios. We find that biocrusts currently covering approximately 12% of Earth’s terrestrial surface will decrease by about 25–40% within 65 years due to anthropogenically caused climate change and land-use intensification, responding far more drastically than vascular plants. Our results illustrate that current biocrust occurrence is mainly driven by a combination of precipitation, temperature and land management, and future changes are expected to be affected by land-use and climate change in similar proportion. The predicted loss of biocrusts may substantially reduce the microbial contribution to nitrogen cycling and enhance the emissions of soil dust, which affects the functioning of ecosystems as well as human health and should be considered in the modelling, mitigation and management of global change.

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Fig. 1: Environmental factors controlling the suitability of biocrust habitats.
Fig. 2: Estimated biocrust coverage under current environmental conditions.
Fig. 3: Change of biocrust coverage by the year 2070 expected under future climate and land-use conditions.
Fig. 4: Expected relative change of the area covered by biocrusts (green bars) and natural vegetation (blue bars) by 2070 according to RCP2.6, RCP4.5, RCP6.0 and RCP8.5.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Max Planck Society, the Paul Crutzen Nobel Laureate Fellowship, and the German Research Foundation (DFG-FOR 1525: INUIT; WE2393/2; BU666/11-17). J.B. is supported by USGS Climate and Land Use and Ecosystems programs. The authors want to thank J.M.R. Mullor for his help during spatial distribution modelling, C. Reick for his support during the modelling and data acquisition process, and J. Kesselmeier for his helpful internal review of our study. Any use of trade, firm or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the US Government. We would like to dedicate this publication to Professor Otto L. Lange.

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Authors and Affiliations

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

    Emilio Rodriguez-Caballero, Ulrich Pöschl & Bettina Weber

  2. Departamento de Agronomía, Universidad de Almería, Carretera Sacramento s/n, Almería, Spain

    Emilio Rodriguez-Caballero

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

    Jayne Belnap

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

    Burkhard Büdel

  5. Atmospheric Chemistry Department, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany

    Paul J. Crutzen

  6. Biogeochemistry Department, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany

    Meinrat O. Andreae

  7. Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Meinrat O. Andreae

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  1. Emilio Rodriguez-Caballero
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Contributions

E.R.-C. and B.W. designed the study and analysed the data; E.R.-C. developed the models. J.B., B.B., M.O.A., P.C., U.P., B.W. and E.R.-C. contributed to interpreting the data. E.R-C., B.W. and U.P. wrote the paper.

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Correspondence to Emilio Rodriguez-Caballero or Bettina Weber.

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Rodriguez-Caballero, E., Belnap, J., Büdel, B. et al. Dryland photoautotrophic soil surface communities endangered by global change. Nature Geosci 11, 185–189 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-018-0072-1

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