A review of the impacts of livestock on the ground in natural pastures

Silva, G. de L. S.; Carneiro, Maria Socorro de Souza; Cândido, Magno José Duarte; Furtado, F. M. V.; Santos, F. J. de S.; Silva, M. S. da; Costa, N. D.; Magalhaes, J. A.; Rodrigues, B. H. N.

doi:10.22256/pubvet.v8n11.1723

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…Empirical evidence suggests that larger herbivores have stronger impacts on plant communities than smaller herbivores (Bakker et al 2006). Therefore, although goats are more generalist herbivores than cattle (Coppock et al 1986), cattle exert greater soil compaction pressure (77.5% more than goat; Silva et al 2014). It is therefore likely that differences in cattle grazing activities (i.e., trampling, soil compaction and mineralization by deposition of urine and feces) among sites create heterogeneous environments that may affect seed germination and seedling recruitment, generating increases in β-diversity between sites (de Bello et al 2007).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unraveling the drivers of plant taxonomic and phylogenetic β-diversity in a human-modified tropical dry forest

et al. 2021

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Biodiversity maintenance in human-modified landscapes largely depends on spatial variations in species composition (β-diversity), but the impact of human disturbance on β-diversity remains poorly understood. We examined how taxonomic and phylogenetic β-diversity of woody plant communities in the Brazilian Caatinga dry forest respond to two emerging threats-chronic anthropogenic disturbance and water scarcity. We separately assessed diversity metrics that give a disproportionate weight to rare species, and metrics weighted by dominant species. We recorded a total of 5118 individuals from 104 species across 19 0.1-ha plots into a 21,430-ha human-modified landscape exposed to chronic disturbances and a high variation in climatic water deficit. At the landscape scale, β-diversity was higher when considering rare species than when focusing on dominant species, especially for the phylogenetic dimension of β-diversity. Water deficit was the primary driver of plant taxonomic and phylogenetic β-diversity, followed by the number of cattle and inter-site isolation; however, rare species seem to depend more strongly on these factors than the dominant ones. Therefore, preserving as much forest as possible, including areas exposed to different disturbance level and climate variables, is critical to prevent the loss of rare species and maintain the compositional differentiation of biotic assemblages. Such forest cover should be maintained in a large number of forest patches scattered through the landscape to preserve biologically and functionally distinct components of this ecosystem, avoid landscape-scale biotic homogenization, and thus favor its ecological resilience.

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