Continuous chlorophyll fluorescence, gas exchange and microclimate monitoring in a natural soil crust habitat in Tabernas badlands, Almeria, Spain: progressing towards a model to understand productivity

The Soil Crust International project aims to better understand the functioning of biological soil crust environments (BSC) in Europe in order to understand the importance of these ecosystems. The final objective of this project is to inform and strengthen protection strategies for these types of habitats in the frame of the European Union. To achieve this, four different soil crust regions have been chosen in Europe following latitudinal and altitudinal gradients. The work presented here is based on the simultaneous monitoring of gas exchange, chlorophyll fluorescence and microclimate of the most abundant BSC in one of these four locations, the Tabernas badlands, Almeria, SE Spain, one of the driest regions in Europe. The five BSC types monitored are dominated by the lichen species Squamarina cartilaginea, Diploschistes diacapsis, Toninia albilabra and Psora decipiens and by the moss Didymodon rigidulus. We aim to understand the conditions in which the BSC are metabolically active in order to get a better knowledge about the contribution of the BSC to the carbon budget of the ecosystem. Our first results after nearly 1 year of chlorophyll fluorescence and microclimatic monitoring linked to gas exchange data during typical activity days obtained in the field suggest similar physiological performance between the different BSC types studied. BSC were active under suboptimal conditions, and activity duration was not different whether measured by chlorophyll a fluorescence or CO2 gas exchange, a relationship that will be the basis of a productivity model.