The biocrust, nematode, landscape love triangle – insights into a complex relationship
El jueves 6 de noviembre, Paul de Ley y Nichole Pietrasiak de la University of California Riverside y Honh Carroll University, brindarán una charla sobre "The biocrust, nematode, landscape love triangle - insights into a complex relationship". La misma será a partir de las 11.00 hs. en la Sala Latinoamericana del CCT Mendoza.
What determines the abundance and distribution of microscopic organisms at the local scale is an active and exciting field of research. Much remains to be discovered especially in extreme environments such as arid ecosystems. We will present results of our research on the links between biological soil crusts, nematodes and geomorphology on an alluvial fan in the Mojave Desert (California, US). With the help of various multivariate analyses we investigated the relationships between land surface characteristics (physical and biological components), soil nematode abundance, and soil properties within the landscape.
We observed significant differences in crust abundance and diversity between the different landform units within the alluvial fan. We also will show first data of neural network model mapping in the form of Kohonen maps representing association patterns between nematode data, soil, and land surface properties.
Overall, we propose that using a geomorphic classification of the landscape can help elucidate patterns of microbiota abundance and community composition and potentially be linked to variation in ecological function.
