Science of the Crust
Drylands encompass over 40% of terrestrial ecosystems and face significant degradation from a warming/drying climate and overuse. To combat this degradation, some restoration efforts have focused on the use of biological soil crusts (biocrusts): complex communities of cyanobacteria, algae, lichens, bryophytes, and other organisms living in association with the top millimeters of soil. We talk with Anita Antoninka, Dept. of Forestry at Northern Arizona University, about the current knowledge in biocrust restoration. These efforts effectively restore biocrusts in different ecosystems using a variety of lab and field methods, providing a useful resource for the scientific community as well as land managers.
Meet the Scientist: Anita Antoninka
Dr. Anita Antoninka is an Assistant Research Professor in the NAU School of Forestry. She is a soil, plant, community and restoration ecologist, studying at the interface of the above- and below ground systems. Recent research has focused on developing methods for dryland restoration using biocrusts and other soil organisms. She is also actively involved in supporting students from historically excluded backgrounds in the sciences. She is a mother of two young field ecologists, and tries hard to maintain a good work-life balance.
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Interview Excerpt - Restoring Biocrust
Science Moab: What are we talking about when we say “biological soil crust”?
Antoninka: Biological soil crust or biocrust is a community or a consortium of organisms including mosses, lichen, cyanobacteria, algae that live together and bind that top millimeter and top five millimeters of soil together. They’re really critical in dryland ecosystems and can make up a good majority of the biomass of photosynthetic organisms. They live in the interspaces between plants. And I think one of the key characteristics is that they’re on mineral soil so you don’t find them on organic soil. They’re really important for keeping the soil in place, keeping water in place, fixing carbon through photosynthesis, fertilizing the soil through nitrogen fixation, and also contributing to soil fertility through collecting dust that has nutrients in it.
Science Moab: Tell us a bit about the work that is done at the Rangeland Soil Ecology Lab at Northern Arizona University.
Antoninka: Drylands encompass more than just deserts, that and a lot of that is range land, where there’s cattle grazing or mineral exploration that can affect the integrity of the landscape. We’ve been working together to develop technologies to restore these damaged drylands, which includes forests here on the Colorado Plateau. There’s a lot of forest fires that are leading to the loss of soil, loss of soil stability and erosion on the landscape. Biocrust can be really important for that rehabilitation process.
Science Moab: What are some of the rehabilitation projects you’re looking at?
Antoninka: There’s a lot of different things that go into thinking about an ecosystem and how to restore it. The first thing is to assess what are the major issues on the landscape, and what are the major limitations to getting restoration to work. So for example, if you have active soil erosion, the first thing that you have to do is figure out a way to stabilize the soil so that you can get organisms to colonize and survive there. So those are the sorts of things that we think about as we prepare a recipe for restoration. Are there any biocrusts that we can actually use in the restoration and if it’s very limited, then what we’ll do is we’ll salvage and cultivate more biocrust. We’ve been working a lot on that area, growing biocrusts in ways that we can maximize their growth in the most rapid way possible. So we can grow a more mature biocrust in a few months by reducing water limitation, nutrient limitation and competition with the surrounding plants. And then the next piece of that is cultivating in a way that when we put them back out on the landscape will survive. So thinking about just like your tomato plants, when you put them out in the garden, you don’t just take them from your windowsill and put them directly out in the garden, you give them a period of hardening. So we’ve been working on ways that we can harden the biocrust to be resilient in this harsh landscape of the dry lands. Then, there are ways we can “soften” the environment. For example, adding shade in some way can help them to get established a little bit more quickly.
Science Moab: We are seeing the impacts of changing climate on these species, so apart from the restoration efforts that you have, is there anything you can do proactively to help these communities?
Antoninka: The first thing that we can consider is reducing our footprint. If we can conserve lands and stop activity on lands that are in good shape, we can keep biocrust communities and the vascular plant communities and functions intact. We do know from the experiments that we’ve done with climate manipulations, where we put species and communities from hot climates and cooler climates, they do well there. So if we just leave things alone, there’s a chance that the right organisms are going to find their way in and keep the ecosystems functioning, even if it is a different set of the community. Also, if we see that we’re starting to cause damage, removing that disturbance, removing that activity that is causing the disturbance and just leaving it alone. Oftentimes, if you don’t have active soil erosion, the community can reset itself through time.
Science Moab: How difficult is it working across various agencies to try and get the research activated in the field?
Antoninka: One of the really cool things about the biocrust research community is that it’s super collaborative. we have this really cool niche of cutting edge science, restoration minded science, and the land management community. I think that’s one of the things that gives me hope is that there are a lot of people recognising that this is important. It’s not just scientists talking to scientists, it’s scientists engaging with land managers and land managers asking for help, which I think is critical to make anything fly.
