Diversifying livestock promotes multidiversity and multifunctionality in managed grasslands

Wang, Ling; Delgado‐Baquerizo, Manuel; Wang, Deli; Isbell, Forest; Li, Jun; Feng, Chao Yang; Liu, Jushan; Zhu, Honghui; Yuan, Xiuliang; Chang, Qing; Liu, Chen

doi:10.1073/pnas.1807354116

Cited by 256 publications

(179 citation statements)

References 55 publications

(72 reference statements)

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“…The challenge remains to develop management systems using mixtures that allow maintaining a high plant diversity also in fertilized grasslands. Here, pathways to exploit the positive plant diversity effects over longer periods could include increasing livestock diversity to promote plant diversity 60 , maintaining and promoting species-diverse hay meadows, e.g., Arrhenatheretum elatioris, with two to three cuts and low to moderate fertilization levels 61 , and seeding of plant diverse mixtures containing complementary species and legumes. Such plant diverse mixtures can also be helpful in dealing with droughts [62][63][64] , which are becoming more severe and frequent under changing climatic conditions 65 .…”

Section: Management Effectmentioning

confidence: 99%

Plant diversity effects on forage quality, yield and revenues of semi-natural grasslands

et al. 2020

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In agricultural settings, plant diversity is often associated with low biomass yield and forage quality, while biodiversity experiments typically find the opposite. We address this controversy by assessing, over 1 year, plant diversity effects on biomass yield, forage quality (i.e. nutritive values), quality-adjusted yield (biomass yield × forage quality), and revenues across different management intensities (extensive to intensive) on subplots of a large-scale grassland biodiversity experiment. Plant diversity substantially increased quality-adjusted yield and revenues. These findings hold for a wide range of management intensities, i.e., fertilization levels and cutting frequencies, in semi-natural grasslands. Plant diversity was an important production factor independent of management intensity, as it enhanced qualityadjusted yield and revenues similarly to increasing fertilization and cutting frequency. Consequently, maintaining and reestablishing plant diversity could be a way to sustainably manage temperate grasslands. 1 1234567890():,; Fig. 1 Conceptual framework of the relationship between plant diversity and biomass yield, forage quality and quality-adjusted yield. The panels show the different hypotheses about the plant diversity effect on biomass yield, forage quality, and quality-adjusted yield. a Hypothesis a. b Hypothesis b. c Hypothesis c. d Hypothesis d. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.

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Section: Management Effectmentioning

confidence: 99%

Plant diversity effects on forage quality, yield and revenues of semi-natural grasslands

et al. 2020

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“…Inherent resource heterogeneity is expressed temporally via seasonality and climatic variability, and spatially among landscapes and topo‐edaphic features, plant communities and species and individual plants and their tissues (Buttolph & Coppock, 2004; Orians & Jones, 2001). Disturbance‐driven heterogeneity is established by grazing and fire patterns that often interact with inherent heterogeneity (Fuhlendorf & Engle, 2001; Fuhlendorf, Engle, Kirby, & Hamilton, 2009; Wang et al, 2019).…”

Section: The Rangeland Ecology Debatementioning

confidence: 99%

Strategies for global rangeland stewardship: Assessment through the lens of the equilibrium–non‐equilibrium debate

Briske¹,

Coppock

Illius

et al. 2020

Journal of Applied Ecology

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This Review assesses the adequacy of current stewardship strategies to address the accelerating challenges confronting global rangeland systems. The assessment was conducted through the lens of the rangeland ecology debate that was initiated in the late 1980s to determine whether equilibrial or non‐equilibrial models more accurately represented the ecological dynamics of rangeland systems. The following lessons have emerged from this prolonged debate: (a) equilibrial and non‐equilibrial dynamics among plants and herbivores always coexist in individual systems; (b) herbivore persistence is strongly influenced by functional resource heterogeneity; (c) biotic feedbacks are highly dependent upon spatial and temporal scale; (d) multiple stable states separated by nonlinear trajectories may coexist on individual ecological sites and (e) management and policy decisions can have important consequences for rangeland systems despite high environmental stochasticity. These lessons demonstrate that scale and functional heterogeneity were critical ‘blind spots’ within the traditional rangeland profession. In contrast, pastoral strategies recognized these system variables as essential for exploitation of heterogeneous resource distribution, rather than assuming stable, uniform resource distribution. These divergent perceptions of scale and heterogeneity in grazed ecosystems largely explain the disparate interpretations of ecological carrying capacity that was central to the debate. Programmes supporting supplemental feeding and infrastructure development have created an anthropogenic category of non‐equilibrial dynamics by sustaining large numbers of livestock during droughts. These programmes decouple livestock and rangeland resources to create an additional stewardship dilemma regarding complex trade‐offs between livestock production and the capacity of systems to provision a broad array of global ecosystem services. Synthesis and applications. The fundamental challenge facing the global rangeland community may not be identification of a unified model of rangeland ecology—as assumed during the rangeland debate. Rather, the challenge may be how to best transform rangeland social–ecological systems to provide optimal combinations of ecosystem services to meet the needs of global citizens, while improving the well‐being of millions of rangeland residents who are highly dependent upon provisioning services. A comprehensive accounting of rangeland ecosystem services, supported by institutional governance and delivered as state–community partnerships, may provide the foundation for an alternative stewardship strategy to pursue this critical goal.

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“…There is increasing evidence for rapid biodiversity loss and community collapse at both local and regional scales (Sala et al ). Human land use is often identified as an important driver of these population and diversity declines (Ollerton et al , Jantz et al ), including livestock grazing, which is the most widespread land use in terrestrial habitats and an important biotic process affecting plant and herbivore communities (Eldridge et al , Wang et al ). Among all herbivores, insects are by far the most important in terms of biomass, abundance and diversity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Herbivore phenology can predict response to changes in plant quality by livestock grazing

Zhu

Veen

Wang

et al. 2020

Oikos

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Livestock grazing can have a strong impact on herbivore abundance, distribution and community. However, not all species of herbivores respond the same way to livestock grazing, and we still have a poor understanding of the underlying mechanisms driving these differential responses. Here, we investigate the effect of light intensity cattle grazing on the abundance of two grasshoppers (Euchorthippus cheui and E. unicolor) that co‐occur in the same grasslands and feed on the same food plant (the dominant grass Leymus chinensis). The two grasshopper species differ in phenology so that their peak abundances are separated into early‐ and late‐growing seasons. We used an exclosure experiment to monitor grasshopper abundance and food quality in the field under grazed and ungrazed conditions, and performed feeding trials to examine grasshopper preference for grazed or ungrazed food plants in the laboratory. We found that the nitrogen content of L. chinensis leaves continuously declined in the ungrazed areas, but was significantly enhanced by cattle grazing over the growing season. Cattle grazing facilitated the early‐season grasshopper E. cheui, whereas it suppressed the late‐season grasshopper E. unicolor. Moreover, feeding trials showed that E. cheui preferred L. chinensis from grazed plots, while E. unicolor preferred the leaves from ungrazed plots. We conclude that livestock grazing has opposite effects on the two grasshopper species, and that these effects may be driven by grazing‐induced changes in plant nutrient content and the unique nutritional niches of the grasshoppers. These results suggest that insects that belong to the same guild can have opposite nutrient requirements, related to their distinct phenologies, and that this can ultimately affect their response to cattle grazing. Our results show that phenology may link insect physiological needs to local resource availabilities, and should be given more attention in future work on interactions between large herbivores and insects.

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Diversifying livestock promotes multidiversity and multifunctionality in managed grasslands

Cited by 256 publications

References 55 publications

Plant diversity effects on forage quality, yield and revenues of semi-natural grasslands

Plant diversity effects on forage quality, yield and revenues of semi-natural grasslands

Strategies for global rangeland stewardship: Assessment through the lens of the equilibrium–non‐equilibrium debate

Herbivore phenology can predict response to changes in plant quality by livestock grazing

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