by Me­chas — Have you ever heard of biocrusts? If not, you are not alone. I only stum­bled upon this term re­cently and was sur­prised to find that it rep­re­sents a grow­ing field of re­search on what ap­pear to be frag­ile, sur­face soil com­mu­ni­ties that are just the op­po­site. Biocrusts are in­cred­i­bly re­silient to in­hos­pitable con­di­tions.