…..On My last trip to Boise, while checking up on some customers restoration projects I ran across these amazing soil crusts, mosses and lichens. This complex web of life does complex jobs including breaking down organic matter, preventing soil erosion, reducing weed encroachment as well as providing another level to the sites biodiversity.

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…..The club lichens Cladonia spp. live on decaying moss. These lichens are amazing to see growing underneath sagebrush thats likely older then I am.

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…..I believe that some of the mosses are Hairy Screw Moss Tortula ruralis, which are called hairy screw because when after long dry periods they shrivel, then they spin almost immediately as they rehydrate, very cool.

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…..The biodiversity that these soil crusts represent is extremely valuable and disappearing from many places in our sagebrush steppe ecosystem. While CSR, Inc is currently hard at work trying to develop techniques to seed the complex organisms, right now there are few ways to grow them at a restoration site other then removing disturbance and allowing them to colonize the site by them selfs.