The glacial-terrestrial-fluvial pathway: A multiparametrical analysis of spatiotemporal dissolved organic matter variation in three catchments of Lake Nam Co, Tibetan Plateau.

The Tibetan Plateau (TP) is a sensitive alpine environment of global importance, being Asia's water tower, featuring vast ice masses and comprising the world's largest alpine grasslands. Intensified land-use and pronounced global climate change have put pressure on the environment of the TP. We studied the tempo-spatial variability of dissolved organic matter (DOM) to better understand the fluxes of nutrients and energy from terrestrial to aquatic ecosystems in the TP.

Desert breath-How fog promotes a novel type of soil biocenosis, forming the coastal Atacama Desert's living skin.

The Atacama Desert is the driest non-polar desert on Earth, presenting precarious conditions for biological activity. In the arid coastal belt, life is restricted to areas with fog events that cause almost daily wet-dry cycles. In such an area, we discovered a hitherto unknown and unique ground covering biocenosis dominated by lichens, fungi, and algae attached to grit-sized (~6 mm) quartz and granitoid stones.

Water availability shapes edaphic and lithic cyanobacterial communities in the Atacama Desert.

In the Atacama Desert, cyanobacteria grow on various substrates such as soils (edaphic) and quartz or granitoid stones (lithic). Both edaphic and lithic cyanobacterial communities have been described but no comparison between both communities of the same locality has yet been undertaken. In the present study, we compared both cyanobacterial communities along a precipitation gradient ranging from the arid National Park Pan de Azúcar (PA), which resembles a large fog oasis in the Atacama Desert extending to the semiarid Santa Gracia Natural Reserve (SG) further south, as well as along a precipitation gradient within PA.

Ecophysiology and phylogeny of new terricolous and epiphytic chlorolichens in a fog oasis of the Atacama Desert.

The Atacama Desert is one of the driest and probably oldest deserts on Earth where only a few extremophile organisms are able to survive. This study investigated two terricolous and two epiphytic lichens from the fog oasis "Las Lomitas" within the National Park Pan de Azúcar which represents a refugium for a few vascular desert plants and many lichens that can thrive on fog and dew alone. Ecophysiological measurements and climate records were combined with molecular data of the mycobiont, their green algal photobionts and lichenicolous fungi to gain information about the ecology of lichens within the fog oasis.

The Kobresia pygmaea ecosystem of the Tibetan highlands - Origin, functioning and degradation of the world's largest pastoral alpine ecosystem: Kobresia pastures of Tibet.

With 450,000 kmKobresia (syn. Carex) pygmaea dominated pastures in the eastern Tibetan highlands are the world's largest pastoral alpine ecosystem forming a durable turf cover at 3000-6000 m a.s.