Desertification is currently a major concern, and vast regions have already been devastated in the arid zones of many countries. Combined application of cyanobacteria with soil fixing chemicals is a novel method of restoring desertified areas. Three cyanobacteria, Nostoc sp. Vaucher ex Bornet & Flahault, Phormidium sp. Kützing ex Gomont and Scytonema arcangeli Bornet ex Flahault were isolated a...

1. Arid ecosystems are a patch mosaic of plants and biological soil crusts that have been described as islands and mantles of fertility, respectively. To determine whether these patches are metabolically linked by a fungal network of dark septate and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), we measured translocation of nitrogen (N) and carbon (C) in a desert grassland using 15 N-NO 3 and 13 C 5 , 15...

Terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (TRF or T-RFLP) analysis and 16S rDNA sequence analysis from clone libraries were used to examine cyanobacterial diversity in three types of predominant soil crusts in an arid grassland. Total DNA was extracted from cyanobacteria-, lichen-, or moss-dominated crusts that represent different successional stages in crust development, and which cont...

BACKGROUND Biological soil crusts are common components of desert ecosystem; they cover ground surface and interact with topsoil that contribute to desertification control and degraded land restoration in arid and semiarid regions. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS To distinguish the changes in topsoil affected by biological soil crusts, we compared topsoil properties across three types of succe...

The Gurbantunggut Desert, the largest fixed and semi-fixed desert in China, is characterized by a predominant coverage of lichen-dominated biological soil crusts, which serve an indispensable role in sand fixation. Two findings of biological soil crusts have been disclosed from previous field observations: first, distribution of biological soil crusts is selective upon locations; second, specie...

1. Desertification negatively impacts a large proportion of the global human population and > 30% of the terrestrial land surface. Better methods are needed to detect areas that are at risk of desertification and to ameliorate desertified areas. Biological soil crusts are an important soil lichen-moss-microbial community that can be used toward these goals, as (i) bioindicators of desertificati...