Does spatial pattern matter to ecosystem functioning? Insights from biological soil crusts

By Fernando T. Maestre, A. Escudero, I. Martínez, César Guerrero, Agustín Rubio. 2005

110 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/58235015f20e44417e32beb8768ab4cb2b17198a

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In Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

In Nature and Landscape Conservation

Citations in the corpus

Biological soil crusts modulate nitrogen availability in semi-arid ecosystems: insights from a Mediterranean grassland (2010, background): “Barger et al. (2005) estimated that approximately 3- 7% of the N inputs via N fixation by the BSCs were lost by nitric oxide emissions, and Maestre et al. (2005) found that attributes of BSC communities such as species evenness and diversity influenced the amount of total N in the soil.”
Biological crusts as a model system for examining the biodiversity–ecosystem function relationship in soils (2010, background): “This study found that biodiversityefunction relationships differed by site, and by the functional attribute examined, in some cases were more important than total cover and in others not, and often times effects of richness or evenness on functions were negative (Maestre et al., 2005).”
Small-scale patterns of abundance of mosses and lichens forming biological soil crusts in two semi-arid gypsum environments (2006, background): “5 m between quadrats was established to minimise the risk of sampling nonindependent areas (Maestre et al. 2005).”
Species richness effects on ecosystem multifunctionality depend on evenness, composition and spatial pattern (2012, methodology): “26 (39:21 in two-species mixtures, 25:20:11:4 in four-species mixtures, and 24:17:10:4:2:1:1:1 in eight-species mixtures); this value was the average slope found in a survey of BSC communities in 100 30 cm · 30 cm plots located in the area where the soil and lichens for the experiments were collecte”
Biological Soil Crust Rehabilitation in Theory and Practice: An Underexploited Opportunity (2007, background): “…limited to drylands), BSCs are common features of the ‘‘natural’’ or ‘‘undisturbed’’ state, and their removal or reestablishment may shift the state of the ecosystem (e.g., loss of soil fertility and N fixation, Belnap 1995; loss of erosion resistance and microbial activity, Maestre et al. 2005).”
Micro‐geomorphology determines community structure of biological soil crusts at small scales (2010, unknown): “, 2005), few studies have considered their small-scale spatial distribution in arid desert systems (Maestre, 2003; Maestre et al., 2005).”
Biological soil crusts greatly contribute to small-scale soil heterogeneity along a grazing gradient (2013, background): “BSCs contribute importantly to soil fertility and soil water retention, thus favouring plant productivity and the overall spatial patterns of ecosystem processes (Belnap and Harper, 1995; Maestre et al., 2005; Belnap, 2006).”