Heat of the Moment: Deciphering Biological Soil Crusts to Protect Dryland Ecosystems

If you’ve spent any time hiking or biking in the red-rock landscapes of southern Utah, you probably already know not to ‘Bust the Crust.’ Biological soil crusts (biocrust) may not look like it, but they are alive. They are also exceptionally vulnerable and vitally important to the ecology and stability of dry landscapes.

Ongoing research from Brooke Osborne from the Quinney College of Natural Resources is helping land managers to better understand how biocrust cover, community composition, and function might shift with the changing climate. Dryland ecosystems, which commonly host biocrust communities, have been understudied, and Osborne, in partnership with Sasha Reed from the USGS Southwest Biological Science Center, is leading a 20-year ongoing experiment on desert plots north of Moab, Utah, to better understand things like the temperature tolerance of these slow-growing organisms.

Biocrusts are made up of a complex partnership between cyanobacteria, lichens and mosses. Like so many biological communities, they are under threat from shifting temperatures and precipitation caused by climate change. A warmer, dryer world will threaten the way biocrusts hold moisture in the soil, affect the way they aid plant fertility, prevent erosion and minimize dust events.

“Climate changes are predicted to drive strong responses in biocrusts, particularly in dryland ecosystems like those here in Southeast Utah, and to shift the way that they function and the crucial services they provide to people,” said Osborne. “They may be easy to overlook while you’re out hiking or biking, but when they are lost, their role in minimizing erosion and helping support dryland ecosystems becomes readily apparent.”

Drylands make up almost half of the Earth’s land surface, so these shifts may have important consequences. That’s one reason Osborne works closely with federal partners like Reed to observe and document these changes.

“There is a lot of exciting, place-based work happening at the USU Moab campus,” said Osborne. “Because of our location and partnerships with local federal scientists, our students have opportunities to participate in this kind of actionable research addressing pressing environmental challenges, particularly for dryland ecosystems.”

Osborne also has a wide range of ongoing projects focused on the impacts of climate and land use change on ecosystem structure and function for drylands around Utah and across the western US. One common theme of the projects she leads is global change effects on soil carbon storage and sequestrations and managing soil carbon as a resource in partnership with state and federal agencies in the western U.S.