Article history: Received 30 October 2006 Received in revised form 25 March 2007 Accepted 26 March 2007 There is uncertainty about the extent and distribution of grasslands following the C3 and C4 photosynthetic pathways. Since these grasses have an asynchronous seasonal profile it should be possible to estimate and map the C3–C4 composition of grasslands from multitemporal remote sensing image...

Understanding the temperature sensitivity (Q 10) of soil organic matter (SOM) decomposition is important for predicting soil carbon (C) sequestration in terrestrial ecosystems under warming scenarios. Whether Q 10 varies predictably with ecosystem succession and the ways in which the stoichiometry of input SOM influences Q 10 remain largely unknown. We investigate these issues using a grassland...

Patch-burn grazing is a management framework that promotes heterogeneity in grasslands, similar to the structure grasslands birds evolved inhabiting. Published studies on patch-burn grazing have been conducted on large, contiguous grasslands and only one of these studies has investigated the reproductive success of grassland birds. We assessed the effects of patch-burn grazing (grazing, one thi...

Marginal croplands, such as those in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), have been suggested as a source of biomass for biofuel production. However, little is known about the composition of plant species on these conservation grasslands or their potential for ethanol production. Our objective was to assess the potential of CRP and other conservation grasslands for biofuel production, descri...

Water and phosphorus (P) are two critical resources for high nature value farming in semi-dry mountains. ey are major drivers of grassland productivity but can negatively a€ect plant diversity. Soil moisture is known to a€ect soil microbial activity and plant P nutrition but the e€ects of irrigation on soil P status, soil microbial P and plant P nutrition in semi-natural grasslands remain larg...

The revegetation of abandoned farmland significantly influences soil organic C (SOC) and total N (TN). However, the dynamics of both soil OC and N storage following the abandonment of farmland are not well understood. To learn more about soil C and N storages dynamics 30 years after the conversion of farmland to grassland, we measured SOC and TN content in paired grassland and farmland sites in...

Qinghai-Tibet Plateau grasslands are unique geographical regions and store substantial soil organic matter (SOM) in the soil surface, which make them very sensitive to global climate change. Here, we focused on three main grassland types (alpine meadow, steppe, and desert) and conducted a soil incubation experiment at five different temperatures (5, 10, 15, 20, and 25°C) to investigate SOM deco...

This study analyzes the impact of droughts, compared with average climatic conditions, on the supporting ecosystem service water provision in sub-watersheds in managed alpine grasslands in two climatically different regions of the Alps, Lautaret (French Alps) and Stubai (Austrian Alps). Soil moisture was modelled in the range of 0-0.3 m. At both sites, current patterns showed that the mean seas...

Although plant roots take up nitrogen (N) both as ammonium (NH 4 ) and nitrate (NO 3 ) ions, under most soil conditions uptake of NO 3 dominates. Once absorbed by the plant roots, the NO 3 is reduced to NH 4 , which is subsequently assimilated into organic compounds. However, when the ra te of uptake exceeds the rate of NO 3 reduction, accumulation of NO 3 in plants occurs. Ruminant animals wit...

In grasslands, overgrazing by domestic livestock, fertilization, and introduction of exotic forage species leads to plant communities consisting of a mixture of native and exotic species. These degraded grasslands present a problem for land managers, farmers, and restoration ecologists concerned with improving biodiversity while continuing to use the land for livestock production. Here we asses...