Appraising strategic adaptive management as a process of organizational learning.

Adaptive management is a systematic approach for linking learning with implementation to facilitate ongoing improvement in natural resource management. The idea of learning from experience and adapting subsequent policies, strategies and actions, is intuitively appealing. However, application of adaptive management has been hindered by several obstacles, including a paucity of documented lessons from existing adaptive management practices and inadequate attention to the complex social aspects of learning.

Seasonal regulation of condensed tannin consumption by free-ranging goats in a semi-arid savanna.

Although condensed tannins (CTs) are known to reduce forage intake by mammalian herbivores in controlled experiments, few studies have tested these effects in the field. Thus the role of CTs on foraging ecology of free-ranging herbivores is inadequately understood. To investigate the effects of CTs under natural savanna conditions, we pre-dosed groups of goats with polyethylene glycol (PEG, a CT-neutralising chemical), CT powder or water before observing their foraging behaviour.

The effects of seed ingestion by livestock, dung fertilization, trampling, grass competition and fire on seedling establishment of two woody plant species.

The increasing rate of woody plant encroachment in grasslands or savannas remains a challenge to livestock farmers. The causes and control measures of woody plant encroachment are of common interest, especially where it negatively affects the objectives of an agricultural enterprise. The objectives of this study were to determine the effects of gut passage (goats, cattle), dung (nutrients), fire, grass competition and trampling on establishment of A.

Feeding behavior of lambs in relation to kinetics of 1,8-cineole dosed intravenously or into the rumen.

The monoterpene 1,8-cineole is a major constituent of the essential oils that adversely influence intake of sage brush by herbivores, but little is known about the mechanisms of its action. We investigated the influence of 1,8-cineole on the feeding behavior of two groups of sheep, one group dosed intravenously and the other intra-ruminally. In the first study, we infused 40 mg/kg BW of 1,8-cineole intravenously into four lambs on wk 1, 2, and 4.

Chromatographic analysis of sagebrush monoterpenes in blood plasma.

An analytical method is required for the analysis of monoterpenes in animal plasma to support a pharmacokinetic study. Monoterpenes common to sagebrush are extracted from sheep plasma by employing solid-phase extraction (SPE), followed by analysis of the extracts by gas chromatography with flame ionization detection. The analytes are quantitated versus an external standard and by comparison with a surrogate standard added to the sample prior to extraction.