Research Question: What are the microbial community outcomes of using an assisted migration strategy for biological soil crust restoration with inocula from three different North American deserts and cultivation at a single site on the Colorado Plateau? Project Description: Working with the USGS in Moab, I will be assessing the microbial community composition of inocula that was created as a mix of various intact biocrust communities from the Colorado Plateau, Mojave, and Sonoran Deserts. This inoculum was cultivated in the Colorado Plateau, so we might expect the inoculum to become more similar, genetically, to other local communities. Alternatively, we might predict that the more tolerant hot-desert microbes from the Sonoran Desert could out-perform those of the Colorado Plateau. If that is the case, then there may be promise for using this assisted migration technique in biocrust restoration projects.
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AuthorSierra is a graduate student in the Barger Lab at CU Boulder studying microbial ecology for dryland restoration. Archives
August 2023
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