Regrow the living skin of the Earth to save increasingly arid drylands

Fertile islands are not the only dryland resource reserves. Plant interspaces potentially house mantles of fertility in a “living skin” on the soil -  biocrusts. Overlooked and undervalued, biocrusts capture resource pulses, and expand reserve capacity. They are compromised or missing in most drylands due to disturbance. Without human intervention, they may remain so. We are developing techniques to actively restore biocrusts as an efficient means to rehabilitate drylands’ ability to store reserves, maintaining ecosystem function. A marriage of this technology and a willingness to assist migration of biocrust genetic stock may enable maintenance of dryland function under novel climates.