BACKGROUND Management regimes for vegetation restoration of degraded grasslands can significantly affect the process of ecological succession. However, few studies have focused on variation in the soil seed bank during vegetation restoration under different management regimes, especially in saline-alkaline grassland habitats. Our aim was to provide insights into the ecological effects of grassl...

Grassland ecosystems play an important role in subsistence agriculture and the global carbon cycle. However, the global spatio-temporal patterns and environmental controls of grassland biomass are not well quantified and understood. The goal of this study was to estimate the spatial and temporal patterns of the global grassland biomass and analyze their driving forces using field measurements, ...

In the United States, government-mandated growth in the production of crops dedicated to biofuel (agrofuels) is predicted to increase the demands on existing agricultural lands, potentially threatening the persistence of populations of grassland birds they support. We review recently published literature and datasets to (1) examine the ability of alternative agrofuel crops and their management ...

Fulfilling the production objectives of a grassland-based beef system requires a robust management strategy to secure the best practicable use of forage resources with regard to the cattle demand. To address the challenging issue of designing such strategies, this article describes the application of an ontology of agricultural production systems to the generic conceptual model SEDIVER, which s...

Seasonal and management influences on the fungal community structure of two upland grassland soils were investigated. An upland site containing both unimproved floristically diverse (U4a) and improved mesotrophic (MG7b) grassland types was selected. Samples from both grassland types were taken at five times in one year. Soil fungal community structure was assessed using fungal automated ribosom...

Bulk tank milk from 28 dairy farms was sampled every second month for 2 yr to assess the effects of grassland management, production system and season on milk fatty acid (FA) composition, concentrations of fat-soluble vitamins, Se, and milk sensory quality. Grassland management varied in terms of time since establishment. Short-term grassland management (SG) was defined as establishment or rese...

Grassland for livestock production is a major form of land use throughout Europe and its intensive management threatens biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in agricultural landscapes. Modest increases to conventional grassland biodiversity could have considerable positive impacts on the provision of ecosystem services, such as pollination, to surrounding habitats.Using a field-scale experime...

Extensive habitat loss and changing agricultural practices have caused widespread declines in grassland birds throughout North America. The Flint Hills of Kansas and Oklahoma--the largest remaining tallgrass prairie--is important for grassland bird conservation despite supporting a major cattle industry. In 2004 and 2005, we assessed the community, population, and demographic responses of grass...

BACKGROUND Europe has warmed more than the global average (land and ocean) since pre-industrial times, and is also projected to continue to warm faster than the global average in the twenty-first century. According to the climate models ensemble projections for various climate scenarios, annual mean temperature of Europe for 2071-2100 is predicted to be 1-5.5 °C higher than that for 1971-2000. ...

BACKGROUND Effective conservation of threatened ecological communities requires knowledge of where climatically suitable habitat is likely to persist into the future. We use the critically endangered Lowland Grassland community of Tasmania, Australia as a case study to identify options for management in cases where future climatic conditions become unsuitable for the current threatened communit...