Conservation grazing for breeding birds needs to balance the positive effects on vegetation structure and negative effects of nest trampling. In the UK, populations of Common redshank Tringa totanus breeding on saltmarshes declined by >50% between 1985 and 2011. These declines have been linked to changes in grazing management. The highest breeding densities of redshank on saltmarshes are found ...

We investigated experimental warming and simulated grazing (clipping) effects on rangeland quality, as indicated by vegetation production and nutritive quality, in winter-grazed meadows and summer-grazed shrublands on the Tibetan Plateau, a rangeland system experiencing climatic and pastoral land use changes. Warming decreased total aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) by 40 g x m(-2) x ...

In ruminants, methane (CH4) is a by-product of digestion and contributes significantly to the greenhouse gas emissions attributed to agriculture. Grazed grass is a relatively cheap and nutritious feed but herbage species and nutritional quality vary between pastures, with management, land type and season all potentially impacting on animal performance and CH4 production. The objective of this s...

The objective of this study was to compare summer annuals for fall and winter grazing on irrigated pastures in the Intermountain West. The cool desert areas of this region have short growing seasons (≤120 d) with high daytime temperatures and cool nights resulting in sufficent growing degree days, but impaired production on cool season forages during late summer. Five species were planted in Ca...

Extensively managed pastures are of crucial importance in sustaining biodiversity both in local- and landscape-level. Thus, re-introduction of traditional grazing management is a crucial issue in grassland conservation actions worldwide. Traditional grazing with robust cattle breeds in low stocking rates is considered to be especially useful to mimic natural grazing regimes, but well documented...

Expert opinion was sought on 2 issues relating to herbivory: seasonal sheep preferences for plant species and seasonal plant response to grazing. Expert opinion is commonly used to parameterize models: it is therefore important to assess its quality. Understanding the limitations of expert knowledge can allow prioritization of future research. Nine experts in plant or grazing ecology from Scotl...

Measurements of soil penetration resistance (SR) have been frequently used for the evaluation of soil structural quality for plant growth. However, different data analysis approaches have been used, without a previous evaluation of their statistical quality. In this study we tested the hypothesis that the mean is the parameter with best statistical properties to evaluate alterations in soil pen...