Land use for animal production influences the earth system in a variety of ways, including local-scale modification to biodiversity, soils, and nutrient cycling; regional changes in albedo and hydrology; and global-scale changes in greenhouse gas and aerosol concentrations. Pasture is furthermore the single most extensive form of land cover, currently comprising about 22-26% of the earth's ice-...

Drawing on a range of archaeological, paleoenvironmental, linguistic, ethnographic, and historical data, this chapter outlines what is currently known about the trajectories of pastoralism in the Ewaso Basin from its initial appearance some 4000 years ago until the early twentieth century, by which time new systems of land use and tenure had been established within the context of British coloni...

The African savanna biome supports a higher diversity of ungulate species than is found in any other biome or continent. This exceptional faunal diversity and herbivore biomass density is directly linked to the high spatial heterogeneity of African savanna ecosystems. The dependence of herbivore dietary tolerance on body size translates into important size-related differences between savanna un...

..........................................................................................................45 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................46 METHODS ............................................................................................................51 RESULTS ...................................................

Indicators of land quality (LQIs) are being developed as a means to better coordinate actions on land related issues, such as land degradation. Economic and social indicators are already in regular use to support decision making at global, national and sub-national levels and in some cases for air and water quality, but few such indicators are available to assess, monitor and evaluate changes i...

Understanding landscape conversion is vital for assessing the impacts of ecological and anthropogenic disturbances at regional and global scales. Since rangelands cover nearly half of the global land surface, and because a large part of rangelands is located in semi-arid ecosystems, they serve as critical land cover types for determining regional biodiversity, global biogeochemical cycles, and ...

1. Plateau zokors, Myospalax fontanierii , are the only subterranean herbivores on the Tibetan plateau of China. Although the population biology of plateau zokors has been studied for many years, the interactions between zokors and plants, especially for the maintenance and structure of ecological communities, have been poorly recognized. In the past, plateau zokors have been traditionally view...

Rangelands provide significant socioeconomic and environmental benefits to humans. However, climate variability anthropogenic drivers can negatively impact rangeland productivity. The main goal of this study was investigate structural productivity changes in ecosystems New Mexico (NM), the southwestern United States America during 1984–2015 period. This achieved by applying time series segmente...