Microbiotic soil crusts play several important roles in many arid and semiarid ecosystems around the world. Their effects on soil hydrology, however, are poorly understood. It has been speculated that crusts (1) improve soil water availability by "sealing" the soil surface to water loss, or (2) diminish soil water by increasing the latent heat of a soil profile thereby increasing evaporation. In order to distinguish between these two opposing hypotheses, we analyzed water loss and temperature of soil profiles covered by different types of microbiotic soil crust (cyanobacteria, Psora decipiens, Placidium squamulosum) and a bare soil. We conducted experiments under growth chamber and field conditions. After watering to field capacity, [...]