Prescribed fire in rangeland ecosystems is applied for a variety of management objectives, including enhancing productivity of forage species for domestic livestock. In the big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata Nutt.) steppe of the western United States, fire has been a natural and prescribed disturbance, temporarily shifting vegetation from shrub–grass codominance to grass dominance. There is li...

The intensity of management of lowland grassland fields in the United Kingdom, coupled with the fact that such grasslands dominate much of the lowland landscape, means that there are now few opportunities for many plants, invertebrates, birds, or mammals to survive. The Scottish Agricultural College (SAC) has investigated whether fencing off the margins of such fields next to watercourses to co...

Many benefits have been obtained from rotational grazing, including management flexibility and livestock distribution, but long-term positive effects on plant and animal production have been inconsistent. The purpose of this case study was to investigate nutrient intake of animals in 2 production scale graxing treatments. The study site was the Texas Experimental Ranch located in Throckmorton C...

BACKGROUND A mixed methods study was undertaken in the Kachia Grazing Reserve of northern Nigeria. Surveys in March, June and October 2011 included focus group discussions, key informant and in-depth household interviews, concerning livelihood practices, animal health, ownership, and productivity. In May 2011, 249 Fulani families fleeing post-election violence entered the reserve with their liv...

Comparisons of stocking rates across sites can be facilitated by calculating grazing pressure. We used peak standing crop and stocking rates from six studies in the North American Great Plains (Cheyenne, Wyoming; Cottonwood, South Dakota; Hays, Kansas; Nunn, Colorado; Streeter, North Dakota; and Woodward, Oklahoma) to calculate a grazing pressure index and develop relationships for harvest effi...

Concentrations and loadings (output, number day-' km-2) of fecal coliform (FC) indicator bacteria were measured from 1979 through 1984 in streamflow from 13 forested watersheds under the following range management strategies: (A) no grazing; (B) grazing without management for livestock distribution; (C) grazing with management to obtain livestock distribution, and (ID) grazing with management t...

We studied 20th century lower forest–grassland ecotone shift in the Centennial Valley in southwestern Montana and investigated the effects of livestock herbivory on ecotone shift at a local spatial scale and a decadal time scale. A total of 525 aspen (Populus tremuloides) and 1703 Douglasfir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) trees were cored and 10,168 saplings were mapped along the ecotone at five sites...