Abstract The objective of this study was to evaluate the productive and structural characteristics Paiaguas palisadegrass established in monoculture intercropped with agricultural crops 2018 2019. evaluated treatments were: (PP) monoculture, PP maize, sorghum, soybean. experimental design used a randomized block, 4 replications (plots 160 m²). Sward height, tiller density, dry mass production, ...

Neotyphodium spp. fungal endophytes form symbiotic associations with agronomic grasses with expression ranging from mutualistic to parasitic. In general, endophyte infection frequencies seem more variable in natural compared to pastoral situations, suggesting that expression and benefits attributable to endophyte infection depend on the resource environment in which the host–endophyte complex w...

An axiomatic feature of food consumption by animals is that intake rate and prey abundance are positively related. While this has been demonstrated rigorously for large herbivores, it is apparent from patch selection trials that grazers paradoxically tend to prefer short, sparse swards to tall, dense swards. Indeed, migratory herbivores often shift from areas of high to low sward biomass during...

When differently sized species feed on the same resources, interference competition may occur, which may negatively affect their food intake rate. It is expected that competition between species also alters behaviour and feeding patch selection. To assess these changes in behaviour and patch selection, we applied an experimental approach using captive birds of three differently sized Anatidae s...

Mechanistic studies on herbivore functional responses have largely taken place in mammals; very little has been done in herbivorous birds so far. Here we aim to fill that gap by experimentally quantifying the (short-term) functional response of a large avian herbivore, the Bewick's Swan (Cygnus columbianus bewickii). We explicitly distinguish between encounter-limited and handling-limited forag...

Dairy farming generates large volumes of liquid manure (slurry), which is ultimately recycled to agricultural land as a valuable source of plant nutrients. Different methods of slurry application to land exist; some spread the slurry to the sward surface whereas others deliver the slurry under the sward and into the soil, thus helping to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture. T...