The USA has about 336 Mha of grazing lands of which rangelands account for 48%. Changes in rangeland soil C can occur in response to a wide range of management and environmental factors. Grazing, fire, and fertilization have been shown to affect soil C storage in rangelands, as has converting marginal croplands into grasslands. Carbon losses due to soil erosion can influence soil C storage on r...

Oak woodlands of Mediterranean ecosystems, a major component of biodiversity hotspots in Europe and North America, have undergone significant land-use change in recent centuries, including an increase in grazing intensity due to the widespread presence of cattle. Simultaneously, a decrease in oak regeneration has been observed, suggesting a link between cattle grazing intensity and limited oak ...

The introduction of domestic livestock particularly sheep and rangeland grazing by Norse settlers to Faroe during the 9th century has generally been described as a major pressure on a sensitive landscape, leading to rapid and widespread vegetation change and contributing to land degradation. This view has, however, been developed without consideration of Norse grazing management practices which...

In a Festuca novae-zelandiae short tussock grassland in South Island, New Zealand, we tested the propositions (1) that present regional trends in vascular plant species-richness in tussock grasslands are independent of current pastoral management, and (2) that grazing retards the invasion and dominance of nonnative species, particularly where soil resources are not limiting. Sheep and rabbit-gr...

Grazing by large herbivores may negatively affect bird populations. This is of great conservation concern in areas with intensive sheep grazing. Sheep management varies substantially between regions, but no study has been performed in less intensively grazed systems. In a fully replicated, landscape scale experiment with three levels of sheep grazing, we tested whether the abundance and diversi...

Understanding the impact of grazing intensity on grassland production and soil fertility is of fundamental importance for grassland conservation and management. We thus compared three types of alpine steppe management by studying vegetation traits and soil properties in response to three levels of grazing pressure: permanent grazing (M1), seasonal grazing (M2), and grazing exclusion (M3) in the...

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...

Protected area management agencies often struggle to reliably reconstruct grazer assemblages due to a lack of historical distribution data for their regions. Wrong predictions of grazing assemblages could potentially affect biodiversity negatively. The objective of the study was to determine how well grazing herbivores have become established since introduction to the Mkambati Nature Reserve, S...

Grazing by wild and domestic mammals can have small to large effects on plant communities, depending on characteristics of the particular community and of the type and intensity of grazing. The broad objective of this report was to extensively review literature on the effects of grazing on 25 plant communities of the southwestern U.S. in terms of plant species composition, aboveground primary p...

Goats (Capra hircus hircus) offer an opportunity to more effectively convert pasture nutrients to animal products as milk, meat and fiber which are currently marketable and in demand by a growing segment of the US population. With the introduction of the Boer breed and the upgrading of meat-type goats with Boer genetics, research focusing on forage evaluation, feeding strategies and the develop...