Public Project
The Microbial Carbon Sink
Summary
Soil scientists with the USGS have embarked on an ambitions multi-year project to map biological soil crusts -- or biocrusts. These colonies of lichens, mosses, microbes and bacteria live in certain desert ecosystems, retaining much-needed moisture for desert plants and giving the soil a unique craggy appearance. These scientists hope to study the efficacy of biocrusts as desert carbon sinks and protect their fragile colonies from human impact and climate change.
Biocrusts are also being disturbed on a wide scale, according to ecologists, which has the potential to intensify desertification and diminish dryland carbon sinks. Increases in human activity have broken up the sensitive crusts releasing the fertile soil beneath, and climate change is preventing biocrusts from regrowing. Evidence also suggests that dust from disturbed biocrust areas settles in the Rocky Mountains, affecting snowpack levels and decreasing water flow to the already strained Colorado River.
To explore the complexity of biocrusts’ role in carbon cycling, how they are responding to a warming planet, and to indicate potential solutions for regeneration, the USGS and NASA are embarking on creating the first ever in-depth map of U.S. desert biocrusts. Ecologists say biocrusts are very difficult to comprehensively survey, so this project has the potential to revolutionize their understanding of how biocrusts adapt and react to various stressors, including climate change. Combining hyperspectral and LiDAR capable drones, satellites and airplane-captured remote imagery, the project will collect data over a period of at least three years, with much of the fieldwork happening in Utah and across the Colorado Plateau.
I followed this team of soil scientists on their very first field expedition in southern Utah as the surveyed different parts of the desert to collect data over the next few years. I hope to continue following these scientists as the develop this map, though depending on funding stability, this project may be terminated at the federal level.
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