Discussion
In this study, we sought to understand the impacts of drought on the community stability of biocrusts. We examined two perspectives on how the central Colorado Plateau’s biocrusts might resist change under experimental precipitation reduction, i.e., community successional maturity and species composition. Our results supported our hypothesis that successional reversal or successional slowing would occur, with lower abundance of later successional moss cover and higher abundance of early successional lightly-pigmented cyanobacterial cover. Further, we showed broad compositional resistance with no evidence to support the diversity-stability hypothesis; rather, our results indicated a negative relationship between diversity and compositional resistance with no effect from the aridity gradient.