Tropical beef cattle production involving animals grazing in a shaded and biologically diverse environment, surrounded by high-quality edible biomass, is achievable through silvopastoral systems (SPSs). However, it necessary to assess the effects of presence trees on forage animal performance over time. In Brazilian Cerrado, we evaluated 2 densities eucalyptus SPSs (8 years age - SPS22: 227 tre...

Several studies have shown that when a single wildlife stock is influenced by several adjacent forest stands, through production of habitat and/or forage, the optimal harvest timing of those stands can be interdependent. This study adds a second possible dependency between trees and wildlife browsing by the wildlife species may damage valuable trees. The optimal joint management of trees and wi...

Solitary foraging ants commonly use visual cues from their environment for navigation. Foragers are known to store visual scenes from the surrounding panorama for later guidance to known resources and to return successfully back to the nest. Several ant species travel not only on the ground, but also climb trees to locate resources. The navigational information that guides animals back home dur...

The identification of plant functional traits that can be linked to ecosystem processes is of wide interest, especially for predicting vegetational responses to climate change. Root diameter of the finest absorptive roots may be one plant trait that has wide significance. Do species with relatively thick absorptive roots forage in nutrient-rich patches differently from species with relatively f...

THINNING overdense stands to improve growth rate of trees is one way in which the nation's supply of merchantable timber can be increased significantly.' In the Pacific Northwest alone, several million acres of such dense precommercial stands would benefit from thinning. Two basic methods are used to thin dense forest stands—felling unwanted trees with saws or killing them with chemicals. Econo...

Beavers in North America will occupy almost any wetland area containing available forage. Wetland restoration projects often provide the resources necessary for dispersing beavers to create desirable habitats. Their wide distribution and ability to disperse considerable distances almost assure that beavers will establish themselves in new wetlands. Although beavers are a natural and desirable c...

Six classes of current herbaceous and woody forage were collected seasonally from a 5-yearold mixed loblolly (Pinus taeda) -shortleaf pine (Pinus echinata) plantation (in Texas) and subjected to nutrient analyses and nylon bag dry-matter digestion trials. Forages were most nutritious and digestible in the spring when tissues were succulent and growing rapidly. Browse leaves and twig tips were t...

Legumes are members of the family Fabaceae or Leguminosae and include economically important grain legumes, oilseed crops, forage crops, shrubs, and tropical or subtropical trees. Legumes are a rich source of quality protein for humans and animals. They also enrich the soil by producing their own nitrogen in symbiosis with nitrogen-fixing bacteria. International centers and national institutes ...