to reach the desirable ecosystem management, determining the animal dietselection, which is one of the components of rangeland ecosystem, is important. therefore, inorder to determine the grazing behavior and diet selection of sheep and goat, the uplandrangeland of northern part of alborz was selected. in this study, the first weeks of july andaugust of 2009 were chosen for the grazing period o...

Abstract Approximately 10% of China’s grasslands are severely degraded and 90% them overgrazed. To protect ecosystems boost human well-being, payments for ecosystem services programs have been implemented to generate win-win outcomes pastoralists the grasslands. Taking a payment program in Damao County, Inner Mongolia as an example, our study evaluated ecological effects Grassland Ecological Co...

Recent attitude of vegetation assessors is using of new ecologic approaches to evaluate and analyse the complex rangeland ecosystems. Plant diversity is the most important indices to assess the ecological changes of rangelands. In order to survey of plant indices of rangelands, two exclosure areas (long-term and mid-term) and a grazing area in rangelands of Javaherdeh (Ramsar, Iran) were select...

Preference value means livestock preference to eat some plants relative to other plants or species. Accordingly, by studying the preference values, the range managers could determine the rangelands grazing capacity to achieve the optimum performance of livestock and to guarantee the stability of rangeland ecosystem. The objective of this study was to determine the preference value of perennial ...

Awareness of the effects of fire on various aspects of an ecosystem after the fire,is important for range management. Changes in soil physical and chemical propertiescaused by fire can be the cause of changes in the vegetation. In this study, effects of fire onphysical and chemical characteristics of soil were investigated. This research was carriedout in a randomized block design method in the...

Rain-index insurance is strongly advocated in many parts of the developing world to help farmers to cope with climatic risk that prevail in (semi-)arid rangelands due to low and highly uncertain rainfall. We present a modeling analysis of how the availability of rain-index insurance affects the sustainability of rangeland management. We show that a rain-index insurance with frequent payoffs, i....