Since the mid-1980s, sagebrush rangelands in the Great Basin of the United States have experienced more frequent and larger wildfires. These fires affect livestock forage, the sagebrush/grasses/forbs mosaic that is important for many wildlife species (e.g., the greater sage grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus)), post-fire flammability and fire frequency. When a sagebrush, especially a Wyoming big...

information on different rangeland plants’ nutritive values during variousphonological stages is of importance for the rangelands management. this information helpsrangeland managers to choose proper grazing times to achieve higher animal performancewith no detrimental effects on the rangeland vegetations. effects of various plant parts’phenological stages and vegetation types on reserve carboh...

Native saltbush, Atriplex polycarpa, shrub populations are widely diminished and fragmented in the southern San Joaquin Desert of California due to habitat conversion invasion by exotic annual grasses mostly Mediterranean origin. The role these play saltbush population demography is not well understood. We hypothesized that seedling recruitment growth limited competitive interactions with grass...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS A meta-analysis of global change experiments in arctic tundra sites suggests that plant productivity and the cover of shrubs, grasses and dead plant material (i.e. litter) will increase and the cover of bryophytes will decrease in response to higher air temperatures. However, little is known about which effects these changes in vegetation structure will have on seedling recr...

Desert halophytes are a special plant group widely distributed in desert ecosystems. Studying their ecological stoichiometric characteristics is helpful for understanding nutrient utilization and survival strategies. In this study, three functional groups of halophyte shrubs (euhalophytes, pseudohalophytes, secretohalophytes) were studied the Xinjiang desert, leaves relationships with soil fact...

This publication on the development of small ruminant production in the developing countries is based on an FAO Expert Consultation, held in Sofia, Bulgaria in July 1985. Twenty papers were presented and discussed in the consultation and are reproduced in these proceedings. Strategies in breeding and breed development, nutrition and management, the development and utilization of indigenous gras...

Changes in species richness and productivity in a Mediterranean dwarf-shrub community were documented during 5 years following treatments intended to improve soil fertility and reduce shrub cover. Five treatments, replicated five times, were tested: (a) shrub cover reduction by selective herbicide application; (b) application of medium levels of phosphorus; (c) application of high doses of phos...

Reduction in herbage production and plant diversity on rangelands on the coastal part of croatia, due to invasion of terpene-rich shrubs has been recorded during the recent period. therefore, there is a strong need to understand ecological relationships between plant and animal components of these shrubby ecosystems. through four consecutive experiments, we investigated the potential of two wel...

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 ...