Community ecology has experienced a major transition, from a focus on patterns in
taxonomic composition, to revealing the processes underlying community assembly through …

Nonvascular photoautotrophs (NVP), including bryophytes, lichens, terrestrial algae, and
cyanobacteria, are increasingly recognized as being essential to ecosystem functioning in …

Biological soil crusts (biocrusts), comprised of mosses, lichens, and cyanobacteria, are key
components to many dryland communities. Climate change and other anthropogenic …

Grasslands are key repositories of biodiversity and carbon storage and are heavily impacted
by effects of global warming and changes in precipitation regimes. Patterns of grassland …

Interest in understanding the role of biocrusts as ecosystem engineers in drylands has
substantially increased during the past two decades. Mosses are a major component of …

Aim Lichens and mosses play important functional roles in all terrestrial ecosystems,
particularly in tundra and drylands. As with all taxa, to maintain their current niche in a …

Biocrusts are a prevalent form of living cover in worldwide drylands, and their presence are
intimately associated with herbaceous community, forming a spatially mosaic distribution …

This review describes the latest progress of dryland ecosystem dynamic change in the
Mediterranean region. Recent findings indicate that extent of dryland in the Mediterranean …

Manipulative experiments typically show a decrease in dryland biocrust cover and altered
species composition under climate change. Biocrust‐forming lichens, such as the globally …

Soil carbon losses to the atmosphere through soil respiration are expected to rise with
ongoing temperature increases, but available evidence from mesic biomes suggests that …