NTR: biological soil crust

[cmungall]

See http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms10373; http://www.soilcrust.org/

AKA biocrust

Def: "communities of organisms inhabiting the upper layer of soil in arid environments"

This def suggests a placement in PCO ( cc @ramonawalls )

Roles:

• impart stability against erosion
• modify the hydrological properties of soils
• contribute significantly to arid land fertility
• reduce the albedo of the soils

[pbuttigieg]

Perhaps a PCO community would be part of the biocrust and participant in its maintenance. Similar to other biogenic structures like reefs, forests, and living bones.

On 21 Nov 2016 02:39, "Chris Mungall" notifications@github.com wrote:

See http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms10373; http://www.soilcrust.org/

AKA biocrust

Def: "communities of organisms inhabiting the upper layer of soil in arid environments"

This def suggests a placement in PCO ( cc @ramonawalls https://github.com/ramonawalls )

Roles:

• impart stability against erosion
• modify the hydrological properties of soils
• contribute significantly to arid land fertility
• reduce the albedo of the soils

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[ramonawalls]

Yes, I think biological soil crust should be in PCO.

[pbuttigieg]

What about the living reef or stromatolite analogy?

On 27 Nov 2016 05:43, "Ramona Walls" notifications@github.com wrote:

Yes, I think biological soil crust should be in PCO.

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[pbuttigieg]

Biological soil crusts are also known as cryptogamic, microbiotic, microphytic, or cryptobiotic soils. ... These organisms live in intimate association in the uppermost few millimeters of the soil surface, and are the biological basis for the formation of soil crusts.

Language like that and the methods of the Couradeau et al. (2016) paper make me think that the crust, as a whole, is in ENVO's domain; however, it's primarily composed of some community of photosynthetic microbes.

I'm giving it a crack in ENVO under http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/ENVO_01000910 (see the editors version before the next release). One axiom is:

'has part' some ('ecological community' and 'capable of' some photosynthesis)

which can be elaborated upon in PCO.

[pbuttigieg]

@cmungall

Roles:

impart stability against erosion modify the hydrological properties of soils contribute significantly to arid land fertility reduce the albedo of the soils

Would you like these processes added to ENVO? I can link them to the soil biocrust with capable of relations.

[cmungall]

That seems like a good modeling choice.

On 12 Mar 2017, at 22:08, Pier Luigi Buttigieg wrote:

@cmungall

Roles:

impart stability against erosion modify the hydrological properties of soils contribute significantly to arid land fertility reduce the albedo of the soils

Would you like these processes added to ENVO? I can link them to the soil biocrust with capable of relations.

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