Some plants hyperaccumulate selenium (Se) up to 1% of dry weight. This study was performed to obtain insight into whole-plant Se fluxes in hyperaccumulators. Selenium hyperaccumulators Astragalus bisulcatus and Stanleya pinnata were monitored over two growing seasons for seasonal fluctuations in concentrations of Se and the chemically similar element sulfur (S). The related nonhyperaccumulators...

Plant poisoning is a common problem throughout North America, causing significant economic losses not only through death loss, but through the costs associated with reproductive loss, poor growth rates, herbicides, etc. Through good pasture management, recognizing toxic plants, and by understanding the effects of toxins on animals, plant poisoning can be largely avoided. Plants contain a variet...

Locoweed (Oxytropis sericea) is a toxic plant commonly found on rangelands in the western United States. The locoweed toxin is an indolizidine alkaloid, swainsonine that causes neurological and systemic damage. The objective of this study was to determine if feeding of locoweed to pregnant ewes during days 100–130 of gestation would affect lamb behaviour shortly after birth. Twenty yearling nul...

Cattle 's grazing of the locoweed Wahweap milkvetch (Astragalus lentiginosus var. wabweapensis) was evaluated on desert and foothill winter range during the winter of 1986 to 1987. Dry, dead stalks of Wahweap milkvetch that had grown in 1985 and 1986 made up 15% of cattle diets overall, and 24% of diets when cattle grazed gravelly benches where it was abundant. Nutrit ional quality of Wahweap m...

Oxytropis ochrocephala Bunge is an herbaceous perennial poisonous weed. It severely affects the production of local animal husbandry and ecosystem stability in source region Yellow River (SRYR), China. To date, however, spatiotemporal distribution O. still unclear, mainly due to lack high-precision observation data effective methods at a regional scale. In this study, efficient sampling method,...

The constant biotic and abiotic interventions on the Qinghai Tibet Plateau (QTP) are seriously degrading grasslands and, at same time, restricting active ecosystem function grassland vegetation distribution plateau. This research analyses dynamics of composition across three land uses counties. degree degradation was divided into four land-use types based, i.e., healthy (HG), restored (RG), mod...