Impact of biological soil crusts and desert plants on soil microfaunal community composition

Carbon and nitrogen are supplied by a variety of sources in the desert food web; both vascular and non-vascular plants and cyanobacteria supply carbon, and cyanobacteria and plant-associated rhizosphere bacteria are sources of biological nitrogen fixation. The objective of this study was to compare the relative influence of vascular plants and biological soil crusts on desert soil nematode and protozoan abundance and community composition. In the first experiment, biological soil crusts were removed by physical trampling. Treatments with crust removed had fewer nematodes and a greater relative ratio of bacterivores to microphytophages than treatments with intact crust. However, protozoa composition was similar with...

Categories: Publication; Types: Citation, Journal Citation; Tags: Colorado Plateau, Desert, Islands of fertility, Plant and Soil, Soil fauna, All tags... Soil food webs, Springer Netherlands, Fewer tags

Plant composition, shrub biomass, and soil biogeochemistry from an experimental drought treatment on the Colorado Plateau

These data were compiled for a study that investigated the effects of drought seasonality and plant community composition in a dryland ecosystem. In 2015 U.S. Geological Survey ecologists recorded vegetation and soil moisture data in 36 experimental plots which manipulated precipitation in two plant community types. The experiment consisted of three precipitation treatments: control (ambient precipitation), cool-season drought (-66% ambient precipitation November-April), and warm-season drought (-66% ambient precipitation May-October), applied in two plant communities (perennial grasses with or without a large shrub, Ephedra viridis) over a three-year period. These data were collected from 2015 to 2022 near Canyonlands...

Categories: Data; Tags: Achnatherum hymenoides, Botany, C3 photosynthesis, C4 photosynthesis, Canyonlands National Park, All tags... Climatology, Colorado Plateau, Ecology, Ephedra viridis, Geography, Indian ricegrass, Information Sciences, Islands of Fertility, James' galleta, Needles District, Pleuraphis jamesii, Soil Sciences, USGS Science Data Catalog (SDC), USGS:6553a618d34ee4b6e05c3e2b, Utah, ambient precipitation, biogeochemical cycling, biogeochemical data, biogeochemistry, biomass, biota, carbon, carbon concentrations, control treatments, cool-season drought treatments, data release, drought seasonality, droughts, dryland ecosystems, ecosystems, experimental plots, experimental seasonal drought, field inventory and monitoring, field measurements, field sampling, geoscientificInformation, interspace cover estimates, mormon tea, nitrogen, nitrogen concentrations, percent cover estimates, perennial grasses, phosphorus, phosphorus concentrations, photosynthesis, plant community composition, plants (organisms), precipitation (atmospheric), precipitation treatments, shrubland ecosystems, soil cores, soil moisture, soil sciences, soil volumetric water content, southeastern Utah, vegetation, warm-season drought treatments, Fewer tags

Heterogeneity of soil nutrients and subsurface biota in a dryland ecosystem

Dryland ecosystems have long been considered to have a highly heterogeneous distribution of nutrients and soil biota, with greater concentrations of both in soils under plants relative to interspace soils. We examined the distribution of soil resources in two plant communities (dominated by either the shrub Coleogyne ramosissima or the grass Stipa hymenoides) at two locations. Interspace soils were covered either by early successional biological soil crusts (BSCs) or by later successional BSCs (dominated by nitrogen (N)-fixing cyanobacteria and lichens). For each of the 8 plant type�crust type�locations, we sampled the stem, dripline, and 3 interspace distances around each of 3 plants. Soil analyses revealed that...

Categories: Publication; Types: Citation, Journal Citation; Tags: Soil Biology and Biochemistry, biological soil crusts, islands of fertility, soil chemistry, soil fauna, All tags... soil food webs, Fewer tags