Fog cultivation of biocrust for restoration material: effective for mosses but not lichens

Climate change and land use (e.g., grazing, solar farms, mining) contribute to the loss of biological soil crusts (biocrusts) and associated ecosystem degradation. Biocrusts are composed of mosses, lichens, liverworts, and cyanobacteria, alone or in any combination at the soil surface. Cultivating biocrusts for reintroductions into degraded ecosystems could support restoration efforts, but effective methods are still emerging. We built a fog chamber to test cultivation of two mosses (Homalothecium aureum and Syntrichia ruralis) and two lichens (Peltigera rufescens and Cladonia spp.) common in intermountain west biocrust communities. Each taxon was tested in intact and disaggregated forms. We hypothesized that disaggregated samples would grow better than the intact ones, and the mosses would grow faster than lichens. Results showed that disaggregated mosses and lichens produced a minimum of 50% more healthy tissue than intact mosses and lichens, but lichens failed to grow well in either condition. Fog cultivation may be a promising method for mosses, but not for lichens under these conditions. Data include the two full data sets (excel files) and the R markdown and output.气候变化与土地利用活动（如放牧、光伏电站建设、采矿）会造成生物土壤结皮（biological soil crusts, biocrusts）流失，进而引发相关生态系统退化。生物土壤结皮由苔藓、地衣、地钱类植物与蓝细菌组成，可单独或以任意组合形式存在于土壤表层。培育生物土壤结皮并将其重新引入退化生态系统，可为生态修复工作提供支撑，但目前有效的培育方法仍处于探索阶段。本研究搭建了雾培箱，对西山间生物土壤结皮群落中常见的两种苔藓（Homalothecium aureum与Syntrichia ruralis）以及两种地衣（Peltigera rufescens和Cladonia spp.）开展培育测试。每种受试类群均设置完整样本与分散样本两种处理形式。本研究提出两项假设：其一，分散处理的样本生长表现优于完整样本；其二，苔藓的生长速度快于地衣。结果显示，分散处理的苔藓和地衣的健康组织产量至少比完整样本高出50%，但地衣在两种处理条件下均未能良好生长。雾培法或许是培育苔藓的极具潜力的手段，但在本实验设定的条件下并不适用于地衣。本数据集包含两份完整数据集（Excel文件）以及R Markdown文档与程序运行输出结果。