The effects of intensifying the management of 15% of the Swedish forest land on potential future forest production over a 100-year period were investigated in a simulation study.
Biomass harvesting for energy production and forest health can impact the soil resource by altering inherent chemical, physical and biological properties. These impacts raise concern about damaging sensitive forest soils, even with the prospect of maintaining vigorous forest growth through biomass harvesting operations.
Les nouvelles sur l’état de l’agriculture en Afrique sont en grande partie décourageantes, mais on entrevoit des lueurs d'espoir. Quelques efforts stimulants réalisés par des agriculteurs et chercheurs africains au cours des dix dernières années ont sensiblement augmenté la productivité agricole dans certains pays et pour certains produits.
Changes in resource selection associated with human predation risk may alter elk distributions and availability for harvest.
Understanding the relationships between biodiversity and land-use is a key element for the development of effective conservation strategies. We studied a mid-altitude steppe-like area of Southern France, the Causse de Sauveterre, that has been grazed for many centuries.
It is now widely accepted that agricultural intensification drives the decline of biodiversity and related ecosystem services like pollination. Conservation management, such as agri-environment schemes (AES), has been introduced to counteract these declines, but in Western European countries these tend to produce mixed biodiversity benefits.
Seeding rangeland following wildfire is a central tool managers use to stabilize soils and inhibit the spread of invasive plants. Rates of successful seeding on arid rangeland, however, are low. The objective of this study was to determine the degree to which water availability, invasive plant abundance, and seeding technology influence postfire seedling establishment.
Dominant plant species are often used as indicators of site potential in forest and rangelands. However, subspecies of dominant vegetation often indicate different site characteristics and, therefore, may be more useful indicators of plant community potential and provide more precise information for management.
Two long-term (16 year) experiments on intensively managed pastures compared extensive grazing, abandonment and continued intensive grazing and were assessed for impacts on soil parameters, plant nutrient content and ecological indicator values. There was a reduction in soil carbon and nitrogen in the abandoned treatment compared to the intensively managed treatment at the wetter site.
The socio-economic changes of the last decades have resulted in changes in traditional land uses with consequent abandonment of large farmland areas in the Mediterranean region.
In Greece, deciduous oak forests usually provide both, wood production and grazing of understory vegetation. Grazing as a management tool was assayed in a deciduous oak coppice forest of 2000ha under conversion during the management period of 1991-2005 in Central Macedonia, Greece. In this forest, 1340 cows and 3880 goats were grazing from May to October along the years.
The need for a unified mechanistic ecological framework that improves our ability to make decisions, predicts vegetation change, guides the implementation of restoration, and fosters learning is substantial and unmet.