Escherichia coli is widely considered to not survive for extended periods outside the intestines of warm-blooded animals; however, recent studies demonstrated that E. coli strains maintain populations in soil and water without any known fecal contamination. The objective of this study was to investigate whether the niche partitioning of E. coli occurs between cattle and their pasture. We attemp...

The encroachment of Eastern redcedar (ERC) (Juniperus virginiana L.) onto Great Plains prairies has become a serious threat to ecosystem functioning and grazing productivity. uncontrolled spread this invasive tree species been called »green glacier« converting grasslands into closed canopy woodlands. A pasture cutting robot was developed using tracked Autonomous Ground Vehicle (AGV) equipped wi...

Sulfur (S) is a requisite part of the ruminant diet, but may sometimes be present in excess, leading to decreased animal performance and illness. In this experiment, 96 crossbred yearling steers (321 ± 29 kg BW) were used to determine the effects of dietary S concentration of a supplement fed to cattle on pasture and of the total diet in the finishing period. Steers were blocked by weight and a...

This article investigates the behavioral drivers of pasture creation and associated implications for deforestation in a 22,000 km2 agricultural frontier spanning the base of Mexico‘s southern Yucatán. After developing a theoretical model that highlights the role of social networks and information spillovers with respect to the decision to begin cattle ranching, we use household data to estimate...

Agricultural and ecological droughts, extreme heat aridity have high impacts on livestock pasture systems worldwide. Finding ways to adapt production increase biomass under these new conditions is urgently needed. The availability of tree shade in pastures could potentially ameliorate the warm weather. Yet, effects cover productivity rangelands are hotly debated. We performed a global meta-anal...

To estimate relative risk for exposure to ticks infected with Lyme disease-causing spirochetes in different land-use types along a trail in Germany, we compared tick density and spirochete prevalence on ruminant pasture with that on meadow and fallow land. Risk was significantly lower on pasture than on meadow and fallow land.

Reclaimed mined soils (RMSs) could restore soil quality and ecosystem productivity while sequestering C and off-setting some of C emissions associated with coal utilization. The study was conducted to evaluate the effects of tillage and pasture management on soil physical properties, soil organic carbon (SOC) and microbial biomass carbon (MBC) in RMSs managed for agricultural use in eastern Ohi...

During the past 15 years many new pasture species and cultivars have been released and are now commercially available. However, with the exception of Nui and Ellett ryegrasses, only a few have received enthusiastic acceptance by farmers. Acceptance depends in part to the extent to which the new plant can overcome periods of low productivity. Other reasons which are the frequent subject of comme...

While we know that deforestation in the tropics is increasingly driven by commercial agriculture, most tropical countries still lack recent and spatially-explicit assessments of the relative importance of pasture and cropland expansion in causing forest loss. Here we present a spatially explicit quantification of the extent to which cultivated land and grassland expanded at the expense of fores...