When does grazing benefit plants?

Trends Ecol Evol

Section Research on Natural Environment and Landscape, Road and Hydraulic Engineering Division, Ministry of Transport and Public Works, PO Box 5044, 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands.

Published: December 1986

Many recent studies have attempted to support the hypothesis that grazing can have positive effects on plant growth and fitness. However, a recent critical survey has shown that many of these studies suffer from poor experimental design, and consequently that the hypothesis may only be tenable under very particular circumstances.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0169-5347(86)90048-0DOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

grazing benefit
4
benefit plants?
4
plants? studies
4
studies attempted
4
attempted support
4
support hypothesis
4
hypothesis grazing
4
grazing positive
4
positive effects
4
effects plant
4

Similar Publications

The Jerusalem artichoke (JA), a plantrelated to sunflowers and native to North America, has long been valued for its versatility, especially during periods of food scarcity. This resilient crop serves multiple purposes, functioning as a vegetable, medicinal herb, grazing crop, and even a biofuel source. In recent years, interest in JA has grown, largely due to its high nutritional profile and associated health benefits.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Genomic selection using white clover multi-year-multi-site data showed predicted genetic gains through integrating among-half-sibling-family phenotypic selection and within-family genomic selection were up to 89% greater than half-sibling-family phenotypic selection alone. Genomic selection, an effective breeding tool used widely in plants and animals for improving low-heritability traits, has only recently been applied to forages. We explored the feasibility of implementing genomic selection in white clover (Trifolium repens L.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Tapirs are hindgut fermenters with a natural diet dominated by browse, with a certain proportion of wild fruit. By contrast, diets fed to tapirs in zoos are often dominated by domestic fruit and other sources of easily digestible carbohydrates, which have been linked to obesity and various health problems. We aimed at better understanding the digestive physiology of tapirs, measuring the digestive efficiency of 13 lowland (Tapirus terrestris) and five Malayan (Tapirus indicus) tapirs from five zoos on various zoo diets by recording intake and total faecal excretion.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Contributions to More Sustainable and Climate-Resilient Cattle Production: Study of Performance of Galloway and Highland Breeds in Transylvania, Romania.

Animals (Basel)

December 2024

Department of Environmental Protection and Engineering, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, Calea Mănăştur 3-5, 400372 Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

Sustainable and climate-resilient livestock systems are increasingly necessary to balance food production demands with environmental conservation. Breeds such as Galloway (Ga) and Highland (Hi) cattle are recognized for their adaptability to extensive grazing systems, low input requirements, and ability to thrive on marginal lands. Despite their potential, research on the performance of Ga and Hi cattle in low-resource, extensive grazing systems, particularly in Romania, remains scarce.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Recovery in soil carbon stocks but reduced carbon stabilization after near-natural restoration in degraded alpine meadows.

Sci Rep

December 2024

Grassland Technique Extension Station of Gansu Province, Lanzhou, 730000, Gansu, China.

Near-natural restoration is acknowledged as an effective strategy for enhancing soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration in degraded grasslands. However, the alterations in SOC fractions, stability, and relative sequestration capacity after restoration of degraded alpine meadows remain uncertain. In this study, we utilized the degraded alpine meadows on the northeastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau as a research area, with grazing as the control (CK) and restoration of 20 years of banned grazing (BG) and growing season resting grazing (RG).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!