Just as our skin is key to our well-being, the “skin” covering desert soils is essential to life in dry places. This “biocrust,” made up of fungi, lichens, mosses, blue-green algae, and other microbes, retains water and produces nutrients that other organisms can use. Now, new research shows climate change is destroying the integrity of this skin.
Such “biocrusts” cover 12% of all land on Earth, so keeping them healthy is essential for the health of the planet. As they disappear, deserts may expand, says Bettina Weber, an ecologist at the University of Graz who was not involved with the work.
Until the 1980s, few scientists paid much mind to the crunching underfoot while traipsing through grasslands, deserts, and other drylands. The crackling, it turns out, comes from centuries-old conglomerations of life that help retain what little water there is and produce life-sustaining nutrients such as nitrogen and carbon. “Biocrusts play critical roles in arid ecosystems,” says Trent Northen, a biochemist studying microbial communities at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Too bad all cons or almost all dont give a shit about the very PLANET they live on...
