What is
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OK, but why?
Ecosystems located in the Mediterranean basin are expected to experience important changes in the rainfall frequency and to increase its nitrogen inputs due to the burning of fossil fuels. Despite many efforts have been made to understand the effects that each one of these factors of global change would have on our ecosystems, it is unknown how they would respond to both factors at the same time. Soil in these ecosystems is usually covered by a natural and living “carpet” composed by lichens, cyanobacteria, mosses and/or algae, among other organisms. We are talking about the soil biocrust.
One of the many types of biocrust
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Recent research has pointed out that the effect that global change has on the functioning of our ecosystems might be different depending on the presence or absence of the biocrust and on its composition. Thus, the benefits that humans freely gain from properly functioning ecosystems, also called ecosystems services, could be more or less protected depending on what organisms are composing the soil biocrust in a given ecosystem.
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ObjectivesVertical Divider
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Med-N-Change intends to reply to the following questions:
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Contribution to society
Answering the previous questions will have important implications on environmental policies and prediction of global change scenarios, with the ultimate societal objective of improving ecosystem management in Mediterranean ecosystems. Med-N-Change also has a clear potential on the economy since recovering damaged ecosystems services is much costlier than protecting them.
The strength of Med-N-Change lies in an innovative approach that couples experiments where the rainfall frequency is manipulated and the exploitation of a network where three ecosystems across the Mediterranean basin have been subjected to long term nitrogen addition experiments. This project merges together well-established research methods and elements of originality in a multidisciplinary approach combining ecology, biogeochemical processes, physiology and omics technology.
The strength of Med-N-Change lies in an innovative approach that couples experiments where the rainfall frequency is manipulated and the exploitation of a network where three ecosystems across the Mediterranean basin have been subjected to long term nitrogen addition experiments. This project merges together well-established research methods and elements of originality in a multidisciplinary approach combining ecology, biogeochemical processes, physiology and omics technology.
Flowchart of the project
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