Creation and Restoration of Biocrusts in the Degraded Ecosystems by Cyanobacterization Technology

Human-induced land degradation often lead to desertification and then emerging new-born unstable ecosystems, such as dried-up lake and, or wetland beds. Therefore, accelerating the self-restoring time of new-born unstable ecosystems will lead to the achievement of sustainable development goals. Accordingly, this study planned to evaluate the possibility of using cyanobacterial inoculation technology to create biocrusts in the Lake Urmia dried beds, as a new-born and wind erosion-prone ecosystem. To this end, the bulk samples were taken from the Lake Urmia dried beds, and the samples poured into the erosion small-scale trays (with 50, 30, and 10 cm length, width, height). The existing cyanobacteria were selected, purified and proliferated from the soil origin soil, and then they inoculated (1.52 g l-1) on the trays. After 120 days, we measured the important indicators of the biocrust development including chlorophyll concentration, thickness and aggregate stability to assess the extent of biocrust creation. We found that the cyanobacteria inoculation improved the chlorophyll concentration and thickness of the soils by 57 -and 2.89-fold, respectively, as compared to the control. Assessing the scanning electron microscopy images from the soil surface also confirmed the ability of cyanobacteria in increasing the strong bindings between soil particles. By and large, in line with the objectives of soil conservation, our inoculation technique was an effective and rapid way to control land degradation and create biocrusts in the new-born unstable ecosystems.