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Soil microstructure as an under-explored feature of biological soil crust hydrological properties: case study from the NW Negev Desert

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Abstract

Biological soil crusts (BSCs) can play an important role in hydrological cycles, especially in dryland ecosystems where the availability of water is limited. Many factors influence the hydrological behavior of BSCs, one of which is the microstructure. In order to describe the influence of the soil microstructure of BSCs on water redistribution, we investigated the change of the pore system of three different successional stages of BSCs, as well as their respective subcrusts in the NW Negev desert, Israel, using 2-dimensional thin sections, as well as non-invasive X-ray 3D computed microtomography (XCMT) and mercury intrusion porosimetry. Our results show that the pore system undergoes significant changes during crust succession. Both the total porosity, as well as the pore sizes significantly increased from cyano- to lichen- to mosscrust and the pore geometry changed from tortuous to straight pore shapes. We introduce two new mechanisms that contribute to the hydrological properties of the BSCs in the NW Negev that impede infiltration: (i) vesicular pores and (ii) a discontinuous pore system with capillary barrier effects, caused by a rapid change of grain sizes due to sand burial. Since both of these mechanisms are present mostly in early stage cyanobacterial crusts and their abundance decreases strongly with succession, it is very likely that they influence BSC hydrology to different extents in the various crust types and that they are partly responsible for differences in runoff in the NW Negev.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) for funding this research in the framework of their Trilateral Project “Biotic and abiotic factor affecting biological soil crust formation and recovery in a semiarid dune ecosystem, Gaza and NW Negev” (Project FE 218/14-2), and the Arid Ecosystems Research Center of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for access to their field sites. Special thanks are due to Simon Berkowicz for his great support during fieldwork and for editing. We also thank the team of the Institute of Plant Nutrition and Soil Science of the University of Kiel for their help during the XCMT analyses.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Soil Science and Soil Conservation, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Giessen, Germany

    Vincent John Martin Noah Linus Felde, Sylvie Drahorad & Peter Felix-Henningsen

  2. Department of Soil Science, University of Kassel, Kassel, Germany

    Stephan Peth & Daniel Uteau-Puschmann

  3. Institut für Bodenkunde und Bodenerhaltung, Heinrich-Buff-Ring 26-32, 35392, Giessen, Germany

    Vincent John Martin Noah Linus Felde

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  1. Vincent John Martin Noah Linus Felde
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Correspondence to Vincent John Martin Noah Linus Felde.

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Communicated by Guest Editors of S.I.: Biocrust.

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Felde, V.J.M.N.L., Peth, S., Uteau-Puschmann, D. et al. Soil microstructure as an under-explored feature of biological soil crust hydrological properties: case study from the NW Negev Desert. Biodivers Conserv 23, 1687–1708 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-014-0693-7

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