In a previous article, Beschta et al. (2013) argue that grazing by large ungulates (both native and domestic) should be eliminated or greatly reduced on western public lands to reduce potential climate change impacts. The authors were selective in their use of the scientific literature, and their publication is more of an opinion article than a synthesis. Their conclusions do not reflect the complexities associated with herbivore grazing. Interactions of climate change and grazing will depend on the specific situation.

Earthworm and termite diversity were studied in 12 long-term agricultural field trials across the sub-humid to semi-arid tropical zones of Eastern and Western Africa. In each trial, treatments with high and low soil organic C were chosen to represent contrasts in long-term soil management effects, including tillage intensity, organic matter and nutrient management and crop rotations. For each trial, a fallow representing a relatively undisturbed reference was also sampled.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, conservation of available soil N during early crop growth, when N loss by leaching generally occurs, is important to improve crop productivity. In a dry tropical cropland in Tanzania, we assessed the potential role of soil microbes as a temporal N sink–source to conserve the available soil N until later crop growth, which generally requires substantial crop N uptake.

The introduction, establishment and spread of non-native earthworm species in North America have been ongoing for centuries. These introductions have occurred across the continent and in some ecosystems have resulted in considerable modifications to ecosystem processes and functions associated with above- and belowground foodwebs. However, many areas of North America have either never been colonized by introduced earthworms, or have soils that are still inhabited exclusively by native earthworm fauna.

The dehesas and montados of Spain and Portugal cover about 6 million ha and form open savannah-type woodland comprising cork (Quercus suber) and holm (Q. rotundifolia and Q. ilex) oaks. Following their decline until the 1960s, these land management practices have become valued at national and international policy-making levels for their biodiversity, aesthetic qualities and potential for tourism and recreation, but comparatively little attention has been given to consequences for soil conservation.

During 2008 the world witnessed a global food crisis which caused social unrest in many countries and drove 75 million more people into poverty. The crisis resulted from sharply higher oil prices, increased bio-fuel production, dwindling grain stocks, market speculation, changing food consumption patterns in emerging economies, and changes in world trade agreements, among other factors. Although the rise in food prices was sudden, the fragility of global food security had been developing for years.

Fire was arguably the most important forest and rangeland disturbance process in the Inland Northwest United States for millennia. Prior to the Lewis and Clark expedition, fire regimes ranged from high severity with return intervals of one to five centuries, to low severity with fire-free periods lasting three decades or less. Indoamerican burning contributed to the fire ecology of grasslands and lower and mid-montane dry forests, especially where ponderosa pine was the dominant overstory species, but the extent of this contribution is difficult to quantify.

Leaf area index (LAI; the single-sided leaf area per unit area of ground) is a measure of plant standing crop in terrestrial ecosystems and is a key parameter in meteorological, climate and hydrological models. While the LAI of individual species can be measured by destructive harvesting and LAI of whole landscapes can be estimated by remote sensing, estimates of species-specific LAI at the landscape-scale are lacking.

Native vegetation around the world is under threat from historical and ongoing clearance, overgrazing, invasive species, increasing soil and water salinity, altered fire regimes, poor land management and other factors, resulting in a degradation of natural ecosystem services. Consequently, maintaining and improving native vegetation condition is a target frequently adopted by natural resource managers and government agencies world-wide. Adequate monitoring of vegetation condition remains a prerequisite for environmental decision-making and for tracking progress towards management goals.

Water scarcity and drought in Africa are often in the news. The widespread tendency to relate farmers' notion of drought to changes in the occurrence of dry spells is misguided: several recent studies have yielded little evidence of an increase in the length and/or frequency of such spells. The farmers' concept of drought is contextual and an indirect result of land degradation. Plant production suffers because water is not available due to deteriorated physical properties of soil. Farmers' perception of drought refers to the Green Water Use Efficiency (GWUE), i.e.

SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) represents a dynamic catchment modelling application that can be applied to any river basin and used to quantify the impact of land management practices on water quality over a continuous period. The objective of this study is to apply the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to model pathogen transport, simulate management practices affecting water quality and predict pathogen loads in Irish catchments.