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...

Seaweed beds play a key role in providing essential habitats and energy to coastal areas, with enhancements in productivity and biodiversity and benefits to human societies. However, the spatial extent of seaweed beds around Japan has decreased due to coastal reclamation, water quality changes, rising water temperatures, and heavy grazing by herbivores. Using monthly mean sea surface temperatur...

grazing management plays an important role in the continuous and economicutilization of pastures. proper grazing management is a main factor for the accumulation ofplant litter which reduces soil erosion and increase the soil permeability to keep moremoisture in the soil. in current study, the effect of three different grazing intensities (low,moderate and high) along with the grazing gradient ...

Many biodiversity experiments have demonstrated that plant diversity can stabilize productivity in experimental grasslands. However, less is known about how diversity-stability relationships are mediated by grazing. Grazing is known for causing species losses, but its effects on plant functional groups (PFGs) composition and species asynchrony, which are closely correlated with ecosystem stabil...

Excessive levels of fecal indicator bacteria are a major cause water quality impairment. Grazing and its management may significantly impact concentrations; however, other sources can contribute to issues both in the presence absence cattle, thus confounding results. In this study, we utilize Bacteroides markers evaluate loading from cattle versus background runoff rotationally grazed ungrazed ...

Changes in commodity pricing and environmental concerns are changing animal agriculture throughout the United States. Adopting multispecies grazing as an alternative production system could result in improved forage utilization, increased animal performance, and reduced production costs, and thereby improve the financial stability of livestock operations. This study focused on the Silver Spur R...

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...