We studied five lower forest–grassland ecotones in the Darhad Valley in northern Mongolia and investigated the effects of 20th Century grazing regimes and changes in grazing management on ecotone dynamics at a local scale. A total of 2968 Siberian larch (Larix sibirica) trees were cored and tree-age distribution was constructed to determine 20th Century tree establishment. Tree age and location...

Research was conducted on the effects of rotational grazing (RG) compared to continuous grazing (CG) on the behavior of cattle grazing on rangelands. Different livestock den&tics in the RG treatments were created by varying the size of paddocks in a 4651a, U-paddock, cell deaigntd RG treatment stocked at a rate of 3.6 ha/cow/yr. Paddock sizes of 30 and lo-ha were used to simulate RG with 14 (RG...

Livestock grazing can be used as a key management tool for maintaining healthy ecosystems. However, the effectiveness of using grazing to modify habitat for species of conservation concern depends on how the grazing regime is implemented. Timing of grazing is one grazing regime component that is less understood than grazing intensity and grazer identity, but is predicted to have important impli...

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...

water quality is a serious issue in tropical grasslands that must be addressed to ensure the continuity and sustainability of water resources. this study aimed to assess the stream water quality of tropical grassland under long-term moderate (2.7 animal unit ha-1 y-1 for 34 years) and short-term heavy (5 animal unit ha-1 y-1 for 2 years) grazing systems at catchment and farm scales in kuala lum...

investigation of the grazing behavior of grazing animals on the rangeland is one of the basic necessities of grazing management in different climatic regions. the current study with the aim of exploring the grazing behavior of makuyi sheep breed was conducted in the mountainous rangelands of kelid daghi of jolfa as representative rangelands for makuyi sheep breed dispersion in east azerbayjan p...

Despite our growing knowledge on plants' functional responses to grazing, there is no consensus if an optimum level of functional aggregation exists for detecting grazing effects in drylands. With a comparative approach we searched for plant functional types (PFTs) with a consistent response to grazing across two areas differing in climatic aridity, situated in South Africa's grassland and sava...

Circulating microRNAs (c-miRNAs) are associated with physiological adaptation to acute and chronic aerobic exercise in humans. To investigate the potential effect of grazing movement on miRNA circulation in cattle, here we profiled miRNA expression in centrifugally prepared exosomes from the plasma of both grazing and housed Japanese Shorthorn cattle. Microarray analysis of the c-miRNAs resulte...

In arid and semi-arid rangelands, grazing as one of the natural or human induced processes has direct and indirect effects on structure and dynamics of plant community and ecosystems. A study was done to analyze the effects of grazing on plant species diversity and Plant Functional Types‘ (PFTs) diversity of arid and semi-arid rangelands. We analyzed plant richness and diversity data from 75 sa...

To investigate the effect of restricted grazing time on behavior of Tan sheep on desert steppe, forty 4-months old male Tan sheep with an original body weight (BW) of 15.62±0.33 kg were randomly allocated to 4 grazing groups which corresponded to 4 different restricted grazing time treatments of 2 h/d (G2), 4 h/d (G4), 8 h/d (G8) and 12 h/d (G12) access to pasture. The restricted grazing times ...