Acquiring high‐quality and sufficient propagules/fragments for cyanobacteria crust inoculation and restoration of degraded soils in a sandy desert

Abstract Sowing naturally developing biocrust fragments is a fast and effective approach to cultivate biocrusts for the restoration of soil function. However, producing large amounts of biocrust fragments/propagules is difficult for ecological restoration, especially at large scales. In this study, we use fresh cyanobacteria to cultivate fragments and then broadcast these to culture artificial biocrusts under field conditions. Our results show that the cultivated biocrust coverage, thickness, chlorophyll a and total carbohydrate concentrations continuously increase after broadcasting. The cyanobacterial communities in incubated biocrusts were dominated by Phormidium , Chroococcidiopsaceae , Crinalium and Tychonema . Our study shows that fragments can allow for successful incubation of artificial biocrusts in short periods. We suggest a two‐step nursery and sowing procedure (i.e., first acquire fragments and then broadcast them) to incubate artificial biocrusts at large scale.