rangeland shrubs may provide mechanical facilitation on their understory plants, by protecting themagainst the livestock grazing. however, such a facilitation effect may vary depending on the rangelandutilization rate. in a field research, mechanical facilitation of rangeland shrubs was compared in ahighly grazed, a moderately grazed and an enclosure site; in an arid rangeland, kakhak, gonabad,...

As a plant produces more stolons and stolon branches it expands in area and is made up of clonal members. In established white clover (Trifolium repens L.) populations, seedBecause of decay of older stolons and environmental ling recruitment is rare and plants spread by clonal growth, which could lead to low intraspecific genetic diversity. To assess how populadisturbance, a clone frequently fr...

Recent studies indicate that species richness can enhance the ability of plant assemblages to support multiple ecosystem functions. To understand how and when ecosystem services depend on biodiversity, it is valuable to expand beyond experimental grasslands. We examined whether plant diversity improves the capacity of agroecosystems to sustain multiple ecosystem services-production of wood and ...

UNLABELLED Fire, herbivory and their interaction influence plant community dynamics. However, little is known about the influence of prefire herbivory on postfire plant community response, particularly long-term resistance to postfire exotic plant invasion in areas that historically experienced limited large herbivore pressure and infrequent, periodic fires.We investigated the long-term postfir...

Cover crops are a suite of non-marketable plant species grown to improve soil quality. They may have additional benefits including reduced weed pressure and enhanced habitat for beneficial arthropods, but they do not provide direct revenue. Integrating sheep grazing for cover crop termination could make the use of cover crops more economically feasible. However, if grazing shifts biological com...

Soil microbial biomass plays an important role in nutrient transformation in terrestrial ecosystems. Microbial biomass is also an early indicator of changes in total soil organic carbon. Thus, the main objective of this study was to identify and quantify the present status of soil microbial biomass carbon and nitrogen with various management practices in Himalayan rangeland. To meet the aforeme...

Grassland management practices and intensities are key factors influencing the quality balance of their provisioning regulating ecosystem services. Most European temperate grasslands exploited through mowing, grazing, or a combination both in relatively small units. Grazing mowing can however not be considered equivalent because first is gradual selective second not. In this study, aim to diffe...

Recently, it has been proposed on theoretical grounds that carrion odor from flowers may not only attract pollinators, but also repel mammalian herbivores. Two grazing experiments involving 16 to 26 cattle heads per year, one for eight years (1982-1989) and the other for seven (1994-2000), in a region with no large carnivores that could influence cattle behavior, show that cattle avoid areas wh...