Environmental Microbiology
Environmental Microbiology
5 years ago

Exposure to predicted precipitation patterns decrease population size and alter community structure of cyanobacteria in biological soil crusts from the Chihuahuan Desert

Náthali Maria Machado de Lima, Ferran Garcia-Pichel, Scott L. Collins, Daniel Roush, Jennifer Rudgers, Vanessa Moreira Câmara Fernandes
Cyanobacteria typically colonize the surface of arid soils, building biological soil crust (biocrusts) that provide a variety of ecosystem benefits, ranging from fertilization to stabilization against erosion. We investigated how future scenarios in precipitation anticipated for the Northern Chihuahuan Desert affected abundance and composition of biocrust cyanobacteria in two grassland ecosystems. Scenarios included a decrease in precipitation and a delay of monsoon rainfall. After three years, both treatments negatively affected cyanobacteria, although the effects of monsoon delay were milder than those of decreased precipitation. Mature biocrusts in black grama grassland suffered severe losses in cyanobacterial biomass and diversity, but compositionally simpler biocrusts in blue grama-dominated grassland maintained biomass, only suffering diversity losses. This could be partially explained by the differential sensitivity of cyanobacterial taxa: nitrogen-fixing Scytonema spp. were the most sensitive, followed by phylotypes in the Microcoleus steenstrupii complex. Microcoleus vaginatus was the least affected in all cases, but is known to be very sensitive to warming. We predict that altered precipitation will tend to prevent biocrusts from reaching successional maturity, selecting for M. vaginatus over competing M. steenstrupii, among pioneer biocrust-formers. A shift toward heat-sensitive M. vaginatus could ultimately destabilize biocrusts when precipitation changes are combined with global warming. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Publisher URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/resolve/doi

DOI: 10.1111/1462-2920.13983

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