Rangelands, Drylands & Pastoralism

The western prairie fringed-orchid is a rare North American orchid restricted to a few remnants of wet to mesic tallgrass prairie. It is federally listed in both Canada and the United States and both countries have developed a recovery plan for the species. Two key management objectives are to monitor population trends and identify beneficial management practices.

There are many controversies and conflicts surrounding land management in the Great Basin. The conflicts often revolve around the maintenance of native plant and animal communities. This paper outlines some of the historical aspects of plant community change and some of the unanticipated impacts of policies applied to the Great Basin during Euro-American exploration and settlement.

The enclosure system is an increasingly popular approach for land rehabilitation among communities inhabiting the arid and semi-arid lands in Africa. However, the mixed results associated with its adoption by households call for an in-depth understanding of the management regimes.

In Mediterranean Europe, wood-pasture landscapes with oak woodlands as emblematic ecosystems are undergoing rapid land-use change, which may threaten their legacy as hotspots of biodiversity, ecosystem services, and cultural heritage.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: The Karoo biomes of South Africa are major feed resources for livestock farming, yet soil nutrient depletion and degradation is a major problem.

The current research on the manganese (Mn) transfer from soil to plant as well as to grazing Kajli rams in the form of sampling periods was carried out under semi-arid environmental conditions.

Recovery of the Florida panther (Puma concolor coryi) depends on habitat conservation on private rangelands. However, cattlemen-panther conflicts and lack of trust in wildlife agencies is undermining panther conservation efforts.

In a greenhouse study, the effects of vermicompost and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AM fungi) bio fertilizers on soil properties and Medicago polymorpha growth were studied. The experiment was set up in a completely randomized design in a factorial layout with five replications. The vemicompost treatment was applied in six different levels, including 0, 15, 30, 45, 60 and 75% fertilizer.

In a study of the traditional livelihoods of 12 Monpa and Brokpa villages in Arunachal Pradesh, India using social–ecological and participatory rural appraisal techniques, we found that the forest tree species paisang (Quercus griffithii, a species of oak) is vital to agroecosystem sustainability.

A number of previous studies have emphasized the determinants of land-use change, as well as the management of communal lands in the pastoral systems, without assessing the effects of such changes on pastoralists/agro-pastoralists’ food security.

CONTEXT: Grasshoppers are a dominant herbivore assemblage globally and play an important role for ecosystem nutrient cycling. Yet, we lack a strong understanding of the relationship between grasshopper diversity and plant community composition at the landscape scale. OBJECTIVE: Our aim was to test landscape scale relationships between plant and grasshopper communities.

An estimated 110 Mt of dust is eroded by wind from the Australian land surface each year, most of which originates from the arid and semi-arid rangelands. Livestock production is thought to increase the susceptibility of the rangelands to wind erosion by reducing vegetation cover and modifying surface soil stability.