Pioneer biocrust communities prevent soil erosion in  temperate forests after disturbances

Gall, Corinna; Nebel, Martin; Quandt, Dietmar; Scholten, Thomas; Seitz, Steffen

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-3225-2022

Articles | Volume 19, issue 13

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-3225-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-3225-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 19, issue 13

Research article

|

11 Jul 2022

Research article |

| 11 Jul 2022

Pioneer biocrust communities prevent soil erosion in temperate forests after disturbances

Corinna Gall, Martin Nebel, Dietmar Quandt, Thomas Scholten, and Steffen Seitz

Data sets

Soil erosion and pioneer vegetation in temperate forests Corinna Gall, Martin Nebel, Michael Sauer, Thomas Scholten, and Steffen Seitz https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.17206835.v3

Short summary

Soil erosion is one of the most serious environmental challenges of our time, which also applies to forests when forest soil is disturbed. Biological soil crusts (biocrusts) can play a key role as erosion control. In this study, we combined soil erosion measurements with vegetation surveys in disturbed forest areas. We found that soil erosion was reduced primarily by pioneer bryophyte-dominated biocrusts and that bryophytes contributed more to soil erosion mitigation than vascular plants.