Biodiversity in rangelands is decreasing, due to intense utilization for livestock production and conversion of rangeland into cropland; yet the outlook of rangeland biodiversity has not been considered in view of future global demand for food. Here we assess the impact of future livestock production on the global rangelands area and their biodiversity. First we formalized existing knowledge ab...

Mixed farming systems involving varying degrees of crop–livestock integration are found in many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa. Increasing population combined with climatic, economic, social, and institutional changes are transforming systems for producing crops and livestock—from systems based on extensive, shifting cultivation and grazing to ones that are more intensively managed and are based o...

The species composition of grazing lands can be influenced by livestock and grazing pressure. A study on manure seed bank was conducted in Ghinchi highland Research Site in Ethiopia between 1995 and 1997. The data on species composition and life-form of the plants germinating in pots receiving air dried manure were compared with species composition of experimental plots in natural grassland sub...

Livestock fodder needs in nearly all developing countries now exceed the sustainable yield of rangelands and other forage resources. In Africa, overgrazing has reduced range productivity virtually everywhere. It is important to provide animals with adequate nutrition to ensure the high productive and reproductive performance. Meanwhile, it is necessary to avoid the deterioration of the pasturel...

0308-521X/$ see front matter Published by Elsevier doi:10.1016/j.agsy.2009.01.002 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +701 667 3002; fax: + E-mail address: [email protected] (R. P Spatiotemporal variability in forage quantity and quality requires that regular assessment is needed of the capacity for grasslands to support livestock nutritional requirements. Current methods for estimating g...

Prescribed fire in rangeland ecosystems is applied for a variety of management objectives, including enhancing productivity of forage species for domestic livestock. In the big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata Nutt.) steppe of the western United States, fire has been a natural and prescribed disturbance, temporarily shifting vegetation from shrub–grass codominance to grass dominance. There is li...

Studies throughout the western United States have shown that livestock can degrade riparian vegetation and stream channels and produce sediment, pathogen, and nutrient loading. This study at the Sierra Foothill Research and Extension Center is the first to focus on effects of livestock grazing on hardwood rangeland springs and associated riparian resources. Cattle grazing treatments at three in...