Abstract: Land degradation in drylands is a drawback of the combined action of climate change and human activities. New techniques have been developed to induce artificial biocrusts formation as a tool for restoration of degraded drylands, and among them soils inoculation with cyanobacteria adapted to environmental stress. Improvement of soil properties by cyanobacteria inoculation is largely related to their ability to synthesize exopolysaccharides (EPS). However, cyanobacterial EPS features [amount, molecular weight (MW), composition] can change from o...
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