The long-term sustainability of modern agriculture is examined in an ecological context. As an aid to defining agriculture, animal agriculture, and sustainable agriculture, a broad overview of the structural and functional aspects of ecosystems is presented. The longterm sustainability of two corn production systems and four beef cattle production systems is then examined relative to energy out...

Extensive data used to quantify broad soil C changes (without information about causation), coupled with intensive data used for attribution of changes to specific management practices, could form the basis of an efficient national grassland soil C monitoring network. Based on variability of extensive (USDA/NRCS pedon database) and intensive field-level soil C data, we evaluated the efficacy of...

Grassland agriculture is experiencing a number of threats including declining profitability and loss of area to other land uses including expansion of the built environment as well as from cropland and forestry. The use of grassland as a natural resource either in terms of existing vegetation and land cover or planting of new species for bioenergy and other nonfood applications presents an oppo...

Grassland bird populations have seen greater declines than any other group of birds in North America. Although snake predation is considered the primary reason for nest failure, little is known about how management practices in the Flint Hills region of Kansas impact movement and habitat use of snakes, and the predator-prey interaction between snakes and nests of grassland birds. Radio telemetr...

Extensive changes in land cover during the 20th century are known to have had detrimental effects on biodiversity in rural landscapes, but the magnitude of change and their ecological effects are not well known on regional scales. We digitized historical maps from the beginning of the 20th century over a 1652 km(2) study area in southeastern Sweden, comparing it to modern-day land cover with a ...

Quantitatively distinguishing grassland degradation due to climatic variations from that due to human activities is of great significance to effectively governing degraded grassland and realizing sustainable utilization. The objective of this study was to differentiate these two types of drivers in the Liao River Basin during 1999-2009 using the residual trend (RESTREND) method and to evaluate ...

PASTURE PRODUCTION is logically measured in terms of grazing animals supported by that pasture. A simple calculation based on stock numbers and area in grassland in New Zealand shows that over the last forty years carrying capacity has increased from 1.4 to 3.2 “sheep units” per acre, or 130% (N.Z. Official Year Book). Obviously many factors have contributed to this increase, including improved...

The semi-private property rights arrangement called the Household Production Responsibility System (HPRS) was started in the early 1980s in Xilingol pasture of Inner Mongolia (China), and stimulated the development of stockbreeding. The grassland has been degrading severely with increasing numbers of livestock. Based on a historical review of property rights regimes in Inner Mongolia and empiri...

Understanding the impact of grazing intensity on grassland production and soil fertility is of fundamental importance for grassland conservation and management. We thus compared three types of alpine steppe management by studying vegetation traits and soil properties in response to three levels of grazing pressure: permanent grazing (M1), seasonal grazing (M2), and grazing exclusion (M3) in the...

A considerable portion of Canada’s landmass is covered by grassland ecosystems. Insight into the grassland spatial heterogeneity will not only contribute to better understanding of the scale dependent ecological processes but will also help in management and monitoring. Leaf area index (LAI) is a key structural attribute of grassland that reflects primary production. It is well-known that topog...