A plant functional approach to the prediction of changes in Australian rangeland vegetation under grazing and fire

Boer, Matthias M.; Smith, Mark S.

doi:10.1658/1100-9233(2003)014[0333:apfatt]2.0.co;2

Cited by 15 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…Additional data are needed to interpret low LNS, particularly with field observation. Given the extremely large areas of provincial, national, regional, and global degradation that are frequently stated (Bai et al, 2008;Bridges and Oldeman, 1999;Kassas, 1995;Oldeman, 1994;UNEP, 1997;Zika and Erb, 2009) and the far-reaching effects of degradation on human livelihoods (Adeel, 2008;UNCCD, 1994), rigorous, quantitative, and objective measurements are urgently needed. While reduction of NPP is a single type of degradation, it is a quantitative measure of the outcome of most forms of degradation relevant to human needs -but not all (e.g., loss of palatable species with no change in NPP; Asner and Heidebrecht, 2005).…”

Section: Anthropogenic and Environmental Degradationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…approaches that seem reasonable but have severe limitations, particularly when applied to large areas: visual assessment of satellite imagery is entirely subjective and therefore unrepeatable; field surveys, such as the National Resources Inventory (Nusser and Goebel, 1997), are limited to small areas (Budde et al, 2004;O'Connor et al, 2001;Prince, 2004) that can be assessed by an evaluator on the ground; and process modeling of potential production followed by comparison with actual production (Bai et al, 2008;Boer and Puigdefabregas, 2005) suffers from the need for data and parameters that are generally not available (Prince, 2002).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Degradation of net primary production in a semiarid rangeland

Jackson

Prince

2016

Biogeosciences

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Abstract. Anthropogenic land degradation affects many biogeophysical processes, including reductions of net primary production (NPP). Degradation occurs at scales from small fields to continental and global. While measurement and monitoring of NPP in small areas is routine in some studies, for scales larger than 1 km 2 , and certainly global, there is no regular monitoring and certainly no attempt to measure degradation. Quantitative and repeatable techniques to assess the extent of deleterious effects and monitor changes are needed to evaluate its effects on, for example, economic yields of primary products such as crops, lumber, and forage, and as a measure of land surface properties which are currently missing from dynamic global vegetation models, assessments of carbon sequestration, and land surface models of heat, water, and carbon exchanges. This study employed the local NPP scaling (LNS) approach to identify patterns of anthropogenic degradation of NPP in the Burdekin Dry Tropics (BDT) region of Queensland, Australia, from 2000 to 2013. The method starts with land classification based on the environmental factors presumed to control (NPP) to group pixels having similar potential NPP. Then, satellite remotely sensing data were used to compare actual NPP with its potential. The difference in units of mass of carbon and percentage loss were the measure of degradation. The entire BDT (7.45 × 10 6 km 2 ) was investigated at a spatial resolution of 250 × 250 m. The average annual reduction in NPP due to anthropogenic land degradation in the entire BDT was −2.14 MgC m −2 yr −1 , or 17 % of the non-degraded potential, and the total reduction was −214 MgC yr −1 . Extreme average annual losses of 524.8 gC m −2 yr −1 were detected. Approximately 20 % of the BDT was classified as "degraded". Varying severities and rates of degradation were found among the river basins, of which the Belyando and Suttor were highest. Interannual, negative trends in reductions of NPP occurred in 7 % of the entire region, indicating ongoing degradation. There was evidence of areas that were in a permanently degraded condition. The findings provide strong evidence and quantitative data for reductions in NPP related to anthropogenic land degradation in the BDT.

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Section: Anthropogenic and Environmental Degradationmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Degradation of net primary production in a semiarid rangeland

Jackson

Prince

2016

Biogeosciences

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“…In most cases, fire and herbivory are independently investigated (Archibald, Bond, Stock, and Fairbanks, 2005), although more and more recent studies have examined these two disturbances together (Collins, 1987;Belsky, 1992;Noy-Meir, 1995;Boer and Stafford Smith, 2003;Harrison Inouye and Safford, 2003;Fuhlendorf and Engle, 2004;Fynn, Morris, and Edwards, 2005;Archibald et al, 2005). However, there is very little research on how these two agents influence the function of each other (Archibald et al, 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Grazing Effects on Vegetation Composition and on the Spread of Fire on Open Sand Grasslands

Ónodi

Kertész

Botta‐Dukát

et al. 2008

Arid Land Research and Management

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Canopy cover of the litter and vascular plant species, species number, plant height, burnt area, and the speed of fire-spread were estimated in 1 Â 1 m quadrates. The burnt area was significantly smaller with late sheep grazing, while the speed of fire-spread decreased significantly due to rabbit grazing compared to that of the control. Plant height was significantly decreased by early and late sheep grazing, while rabbit grazing resulted in significantly lower canopy cover values of vascular plants compared to the control. Early sheep grazing resulted in overcompensation of the canopy cover of vascular plants. Species number was not affected by the grazing treatments. This 1-year experiment demonstrated that moderate grazing has no short-term effects on the species diversity of the semi-arid open sand grassland. Furthermore, late spring grazing decreased the spread of fire on the grassland portions of the community; thus it may inhibit the burning of large areas of the semi-arid forest-steppe.

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“…Space-fortime substitution is then used to assume that the same changes in trait values would be observed following an environmental change of the same magnitude. Growing numbers of experiments have confirmed this assumption for responses to single environmental factors such as nutrient availability (Dyer et al 2001) or grazing (Bullock et al 2001), as do models of community or ecosystem dynamics (Pausas 1999, Colasanti et al 2001, Ackerly 2003, Boer & Stafford Smith 2003, Hickler et al 2004). …”

Section: Traits and Environmental Gradientsmentioning

confidence: 94%