High herbivore pressure is expected to benefit unpalatable species that co-occur with palatable browsed species. However, for five unpalatable understory species we found no evidence of benefit from deer browse. Detailed studies of one species in natural populations, Arisaema triphyllum, revealed surprising changes in its population structure and demography: deer browse level on a palatable spe...

We conducted a long-term rodent exclosure experiment in native grass- and shrub-dominated vegetation to evaluate the importance of top-down and bottom-up controls on plant community structure in a low-productivity aridland ecosystem. Using multiple regressions and analysis of covariance, we assessed how bottom-up precipitation pulses cascade through vegetation to affect rodent populations, how ...

Seed predation by small rodents is an emerging theme in the ecology of modified landscapes. Here we investigate the role played by the small rodent Oryzomys oniscus as a seed predator of large-seeded trees in a large remnant of the Atlantic forest - the Coimbra forest (3,500 ha), Alagoas state, northeastern Brazil. O. oniscus was captured and identified by setting twenty 500 m long transects, e...

Two caging experiments were conducted on an intertidal mudflat to assess the impact of predation on two species of bivalves; Macoma balthica and Cerastoderma edule. The first caging 2 experiment enclosed the shore crab, Carcinus maenas, carapace width 15–25 mm, in 1-m cages. The three treatments were zero Carcinus (control), five Carcinus (the highest natural densities found at this site) and 2...

Subalpine ecosystems are highly fragile as compared to biological andenvironmental factors. Landslide is one of the ruinous upshots of this ecosystem. One of theimpressionable areas in the cause of natural factor is Masoleh watershed in western AlborzMt, (Iran). In order to landslide hazard zonation, landslide index and frequency ratio methodbased on twelve causative factors such as slope, slop...

Degradation of communal grazing land vegetation is a widespread problem throughout sub Saharan Africa and its restoration is a challenge for the management of many semi-arid areas. This study assessed the effectiveness of different age (young versus old) exclosures on species composition and diversity, biomass production and woody structure in northern Ethiopia. The species composition and dive...

1. Through their effects on plant communities, herbivores can exert strong direct and indirect effects on savanna ecosystems and have the potential to create andmaintain savanna landscape heterogeneity. Throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa, periodic creation and abandonment of livestock corrals leads to landscape mosaics of long-term ecosystem hotspots that attract both cattle and large ungula...

abstract quantitative investigation of effects of range management treatments on different soil and water components in rangeland ecosystems has been rarely taken into account. in the present research, the kodir summer rangeland in the southeast nowshahr in mazandaran province was selected for studying effects of open grazing and exclosure managements on infiltration, runoff and microrelief. ex...