#cryptobiotic soil

I visited Nevada’s Valley of Fire Park state park today and I think I saw some lichens. Any idea what these are?

I definitely see some lichens in there!

Excerpt from this story from Smithsonian Magazine:

Under the dry, piercing heat of the Utah sun, Sasha Reed is growing plots of plants—and bacteria, lichen and fungi, too. But Reed is no farmer, and at first glance, her fields look to be mostly dirt. She’s an ecologist, and what she is growing is cryptobiotic soil.

Also called biocrust, cryptobiotic soil is a community of tiny, dirt-dwelling organisms that form a distinct crust on the top of soil in arid landscapes. These crusts are vital across Earth’s dryland ecosystems, helping to hold loose soil together and prevent erosion. They retain water, provide nooks for other microbes to live in and add nitrogen to the soil.

Cryptobiotic soil often looks like a discolored patch of ground. Upon closer inspection, the stain becomes a mosaic of small, dark lumps, dotted with tiny beds of moss and inconspicuous patches of lichen. But it can also look very similar to regular, crusty soil. Although the crunchy earth might be tempting to trek over, like stomping through a pile of crisp autumn leaves, that’s a major faux pas: Biocrust can take decades to regenerate.

And these days, in addition to getting crushed by boots, biocrusts are threatened by another kind of human footprint: climate change. So researchers are diligently working to learn more about the crusts and how to restore them.

“It’s been a pretty busy but also exciting time, because we’re kind of inventing how to do this,” says Anita Antoninka, a plant and soil ecologist at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff who studies the crusts.

The drylands where biocrusts reside are vital ecosystems, she says, but they are some of the most degraded around the globe. As biocrusts decline in these areas, soil fertility will drop, and wind erosion will blow away the loose, unprotected dirt. Less water will soak into the ground. Even the carbon cycle could be affected, as there will be fewer tiny life forms absorbing carbon dioxide.

A second-grader taught me about Cryptobiotic Soil on a hike yesterday with Ann and his mom, a friend from college with whom Ann reconnected deeply. Cryptobiotic Soil, also known as biological soil crust, is a living layer of tiny organisms that forms a hard crust on the surface of soil in arid and semi-arid regions. It's made up of cyanobacteria, algae, fungi, lichens, and mosses, and can cover up to 70% of the ground in some places.