Assessing the influence of soil abiotic and biotic factors on Nostoc commune inoculation success

Aims: A possible approach to restore drylands is to recover biocrusts by inoculating cyanobacteria. Many studies have demonstrated the ability of cyanobacteria to successfully colonize soil and improve its functions. However, most studies have focused on the abiotic factors influencing the inoculation success, overlooking biotic factors. We examined the influence of the soil indigenous community on the inoculated cyanobacteria by sterilizing soils and analyzing its effects on several key soil properties. Methodology: Nostoc commune was inoculated under laboratory conditions on two soil types with different levels of degradation and under two watering frequencies. All treatments were carried out in natural and sterilized soils. Results: The analysis of the cyanobacterial coverage (30–50% in all inoculated soils), chlorophyll a, visible albedo, roughness, water repellency, organic carbon (OC) and exopolysaccharides (EPS) content showed that cyanobacterial inoculation succeeded, improving soil properties that varied depending on the soil type. The sterilization of soils had little effect: in less degraded soils, the results suggest a faster growth of the indigenous community reaching coverage values of 10% and an interaction with the inoculum that led to a decrease in 2 and 0.3 g Kg of OC and TB-EPS, respectively; in more degraded soils, the community reduced the cyanobacterial coverage around 11%, suggesting competitive interactions. Conclusions: N. commune can be employed to restore lifeless soils. Also, the analysis of native soil community should be considered before field inoculation to plan appropriate methodologies

Spectral response analysis: An indirect and non-destructive methodology for the chlorophyll quantification of biocrusts

Chlorophyll a concentration (Chla) is a well-proven proxy of biocrust development, photosynthetic organisms' status, and recovery monitoring after environmental disturbances. However, laboratory methods for the analysis of chlorophyll require destructive sampling and are expensive and time consuming. Indirect estimation of chlorophyll a by means of soil surface reflectance analysis has been demonstrated to be an accurate, cheap, and quick alternative for chlorophyll retrieval information, especially in plants. However, its application to biocrusts has yet to be harnessed. In this study we evaluated the potential of soil surface reflectance measurements for non-destructive Chla quantification over a range of biocrust types and soils. Our results revealed that fromthe different spectral transformation methods and techniques, the first derivative of the reflectance and the continuum removal were the most accurate for Chla retrieval. Normalized difference values in the red-edge region and common broadband indexes (e.g., normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI)) were also sensitive to changes in Chla. However, such approaches should be carefully adapted to each specific biocrust type. On the other hand, the combination of spectral measurements with non-linear random forest (RF) models provided very good fits (R > 0.94) with a mean root mean square error (RMSE) of about 6.5 μg/g soil, and alleviated the need for a specific calibration for each crust type, opening a wide range of opportunities to advance our knowledge of biocrust responses to ongoing global change and degradation processes from anthropogenic disturbance.This research was funded by the RESUCI (CGL2014-59946-R), DINCOS (CGL2016-78075-P), and REBIOARID (RTI2018-101921-B-I00) projects funded by the Spanish National Plan for Research and the European Union ERDF funds, and the project H2020-MSCA-RISE-GYPWORLD (funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Slodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No. 777803). Field sampling was conducted within the framework of the project “Cuantificación de flujos de carbono y agua en zonas áridas a partir de información spectral” founded by Aerial Platforms for Research-ICTS (INTA) throughout the campaign “Investigaciones de Altura.” J.R.R. was funded by the FPU predoctoral fellowship from the Educational, Culture and Sports Ministry of Spain (FPU14/05806). E.R.-C. was supported by the Juan de la Cierva incorporación fellowship (IJCI-2016-29274) and by the Hipatia postdoctoral fellowship funded by the University of Almería. B.R.-R. was supported by the foundation Tatiana Pérez de Guzmán el Bueno under its predoctoral fellowship program and S.C. was supported by the Hipatia postdoctoral fellowship funded by the University of Almería

Spectral response analysis: An indirect and non-destructive methodology for the chlorophyll quantification of biocrusts

Chlorophyll a concentration (Chla) is a well-proven proxy of biocrust development, photosynthetic organisms' status, and recovery monitoring after environmental disturbances. However, laboratory methods for the analysis of chlorophyll require destructive sampling and are expensive and time consuming. Indirect estimation of chlorophyll a by means of soil surface reflectance analysis has been demonstrated to be an accurate, cheap, and quick alternative for chlorophyll retrieval information, especially in plants. However, its application to biocrusts has yet to be harnessed. In this study we evaluated the potential of soil surface reflectance measurements for non-destructive Chla quantification over a range of biocrust types and soils. Our results revealed that fromthe different spectral transformation methods and techniques, the first derivative of the reflectance and the continuum removal were the most accurate for Chla retrieval. Normalized difference values in the red-edge region and common broadband indexes (e.g., normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI)) were also sensitive to changes in Chla. However, such approaches should be carefully adapted to each specific biocrust type. On the other hand, the combination of spectral measurements with non-linear random forest (RF) models provided very good fits (R > 0.94) with a mean root mean square error (RMSE) of about 6.5 μg/g soil, and alleviated the need for a specific calibration for each crust type, opening a wide range of opportunities to advance our knowledge of biocrust responses to ongoing global change and degradation processes from anthropogenic disturbance.This research was funded by the RESUCI (CGL2014-59946-R), DINCOS (CGL2016-78075-P), and REBIOARID (RTI2018-101921-B-I00) projects funded by the Spanish National Plan for Research and the European Union ERDF funds, and the project H2020-MSCA-RISE-GYPWORLD (funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Slodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No. 777803). Field sampling was conducted within the framework of the project “Cuantificación de flujos de carbono y agua en zonas áridas a partir de información spectral” founded by Aerial Platforms for Research-ICTS (INTA) throughout the campaign “Investigaciones de Altura.” J.R.R. was funded by the FPU predoctoral fellowship from the Educational, Culture and Sports Ministry of Spain (FPU14/05806). E.R.-C. was supported by the Juan de la Cierva incorporación fellowship (IJCI-2016-29274) and by the Hipatia postdoctoral fellowship funded by the University of Almería. B.R.-R. was supported by the foundation Tatiana Pérez de Guzmán el Bueno under its predoctoral fellowship program and S.C. was supported by the Hipatia postdoctoral fellowship funded by the University of Almería