491: Less Liquid Lands Losing Lichens

This episode: Trends of declining lichen populations and biocrust
cover overall match trends of increasing temperatures in Colorado
dryland!


Download Episode (6.4 MB, 9.3 minutes)

Show notes:
Microbe of the episode: Cherry chlorotic rusty spot associated
partitivirus

Takeaways:



Global climate change is affecting almost every natural system on
the planet, in predictable and also sometimes unexpected, complex
ways. Microbes perform key roles in many different ecosystems,
providing and recycling important nutrients and even macroscopic
structure. One example of this is biocrusts in dryland
environments, such as areas in the western US with low annual
rainfall. Microbes other organisms form a stable surface binding
soil and sand particles together, helping to retain moisture and
prevent erosion and transformation of land into desert.

In this study of a Colorado park over more than 20 years,
important species of symbiotic fungi and photosynthetic microbes
in the form of lichens have declined significantly. The land is
mostly untroubled by grazing or human activity, but changes in
climate and moisture and the presence of invasive plants could
affect lichens. However, the temperature increase over the
decades showed the best correlation with the lichen decline. The
loss of these species could lead to nutrient shortages in the
long term for these communities.



Journal Paper:

Finger-Higgens R, Duniway MC, Fick S, Geiger EL, Hoover DL,
Pfennigwerth AA, Van Scoyoc MW, Belnap J. 2022. Decline in
biological soil crust N-fixing lichens linked to increasing
summertime temperatures. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 119:e2120975119.


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