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ABSTRACT:In the Alps, many summer pastures are under-used due to the decreasing number of livestock. Optimizing the grazing management of heterogeneous pastures implies a better understanding of foraging habits of cattle. The aim of this study was to precise the relationships between cattle behaviour and the characteristics of the vegetation. The experiment was carried out on a pasture encroached by shrubs (mainly Alnus viridis) and composed of four contrasted vegetation units at 1800 m a.s.l. Four beef cows were monitored in a paddock of 2.9 ha by Differential Global Positioning System (DGPS) during three rotations, in order to analyze the spatial and temporal occupation pattern. The open grasslands and, to a lesser extent, the tall herb community were significantly more visited than expected if cattle had foraged at random. The shrubby areas were far less visited than expected at random. The monitoring also revealed differences across rotations. Vegetation surveys were also performed to determine the specific contribution and the grazing frequency of the encountered plant species. The most eaten herbaceous plants were not necessarily those known to be the most palatable, even if graminoids were more selected than other plants. Leontodon hispidus, Agrostis capillaris, Festuca rubra, and Luzula sylvatica were the most selected species, whereas Veratrum album and Trollius europaeus were completely avoided. The consumed forage was of better quality than the forage collected at random and its nutrient content showed less variability and remained more constant over the three rotations. The results highlight that the selection processes exerted by cattle are important. They occur at different levels (species, vegetation type, in time) and confirm that an integrative approach is necessary for improving the understanding of cattle foraging behaviour in heterogeneous mountain pastures.

Severe constraints on grasslands productivity, ecosystem functions, goods and services are expected to result from projected warming and drought scenarios under climate change. Negative effects on vegetation can be mediated via soil fertility and water holding capacity, though specific mechanisms are fairly complex to generalise. In field drought experiments, it can be difficult to disentangle a drought effect per se from potential confounding effects related to vegetation or soil type, both varying along with climate. Furthermore, there is the need to distinguish the long-term responses of vegetation and soil to gradual climate shift from responses to extreme and stochastic climatic events. Here we address these limitations by means of a factorial experiment using a single dominant grassland species (the perennial ryegrass Lolium perenne L.) grown as a phytometer on two soils types with contrasted physicochemical characteristics, placed at two elevation sites along a climatic gradient, and exposed to early or late-season drought during the plant growing season. Warmer site conditions and reduced precipitation along the elevational gradient affected biogeochemistry and plant productivity more than the drought treatments alone, despite the similar magnitude in volumetric soil moisture reduction. Soil type, as defined here by its organic matter content (SOM), modulated the drought response in relation to local site climatic conditions and, through changes in microbial biomass and activity, determined the seasonal above and belowground productivity of L. perenne. More specifically, our combined uni-and multivariate analyses demonstrate that microbes in a loamy soil with low SOM are strongly responsive to change in climate, as indicated by a simultaneous increase in their C,N,P pools at high elevation with cooler temperatures and wetter soils. Contrastingly, microbes in a clay-loam soil with high SOM are mainly sensitive to temperature, as indicated by a strong increase in microbial biomass under warmer temperatures at low elevation and a

Drought can occur at different times during the grassland growing season, likely having contrasting effects on forage production when happening early or later in the season. However, knowledge about the interacting effects of the timing of drought and the development stage of the vegetation during the growing season is still scarce, thus limiting our ability to accurately predict forage quantity losses. To investigate plant community responses to drought seasonality (early- vs. late-season), we established a drought experiment in two permanent grasslands of the Swiss Jura Mountains that are used for forage production. We measured three plant functional traits, including two leaf traits related to plant economics (specific leaf area, SLA; leaf dry matter content, LDMC) and one hydraulic trait related to physiological function (predicted percentage loss of hydraulic conductance, PLCp), of the most abundant species, and plant above-ground biomass production. Plant species composition was also determined to calculate community-weighted mean (CWM) traits. First, we observed that CWM trait values strongly varied during the growing season. Second, we found that late-season drought had stronger effects on CWM trait values than early-season drought and that the plant hydraulic trait was the most variable functional trait. Using a structural equation model, we also showed that reduction in soil moisture had no direct impacts on above-ground biomass production. Instead, we observed that the drought-induced decrease in above-ground biomass production was mediated by a higher CWM PLCp (i.e. higher risk of hydraulic failure) and lower CWM SLA under drought. Change in CWM SLA in response to drought was the best predictor of community above-ground biomass production. Our findings reveal the importance of drought timing together with the plant trait responses to assess drought impacts on grassland biomass production and suggest that incorporating these factors into mechanistic models could considerably improve predictions of climate change impacts.

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