Drought exacerbates negative consequences of high‐intensity cattle grazing in a semiarid grassland

Abstract

Grasslands managed for grazing are the largest land‐use category globally, with a significant proportion of these grasslands occurring in semiarid and arid regions. In such dryland systems, the effect of grazing on native plant diversity has been equivocal, some studies suggesting that grazing reduces native plant diversity, others that grazing increases or has little impact on diversity. One impediment toward generalizing grazing effects on diversity in this region is that high levels of interannual variation in precipitation may obfuscate vegetative response patterns. By analyzing a long‐term data set collected over a 20‐yr period in a semiarid grassland, we explicitly evaluated the role of climate in regulating the effect of cattle grazing on plant communities, finding that climate interacted with grazing intensity to shape grassland communities. Community composition of plots that were intensively grazed varied considerably in response to climatic variation and native species richness was low relative to ungrazed and moderately grazed plots. Following a severe drought in 2002, exotic species richness rapidly increased in the high‐intensity grazing plots. While this pattern was mirrored in the other treatments, exotic species richness increased to a greater extent and was slower to return to pre‐drought levels in the high‐intensity grazing plots. Overall, moderate grazing, even compared to grazing cessation, stabilized grassland communities through time, increased resilience to drought, and maintained the highest levels of native plant diversity and lowest levels of exotic diversity. These findings suggest that grazing, at moderate levels, may support grassland resilience to climate change in semiarid regions. However, grazing that exceeds tolerances, particularly in combination with extreme climatic events, like drought, can alter plant composition over relatively long timescales and possibly increase invasibility by nonnative species.

Grazing alters the sensitivity of plant productivity to precipitation in northern temperate grasslands

“…There was a reduction in ANPP associated with grazing during dry years that did not occur in wet years. This finding is in agreement with studies conducted in grasslands of Asia, Europe, and North America (Liang et al, 2018;Stampfli et al, 2018;Souther et al, 2020).…”

Demographic analysis of invasible habitat fraction identifies context‐dependent roles of resource availability and biotic resistance in determining invasion success

“…This outcome had significant contributions to IHF, particularly in caged plots (Figure 6c). Other studies have documented high establishment of invading annuals following a drought (Puritty et al., 2019; Souther et al., 2020), and it seems likely that reduced biotic resistance in drought and drought relief plots, combined with relatively high soil moisture in spring (Figures ) increased vital rates early in the life cycle in 2014. Thus, part of the observed effect of the drought relief treatment was driven by factors prior to the implementation of drought relief.…”

Relative pollen productivity estimates of savanna taxa from southern Africa and their application to reconstruct shrub encroachment during the last century

“…In particular, several studies have shown that high grazing pressure in pastures with low grass density reduces seed production and limits the potential of grasses to (re)invade niches (O’Connor and Pickett, 1992; Tessema et al, 2016). In addition, the effects of intensive grazing on the resilience of grasses are assumed to be greater under drought conditions (Souther et al, 2020).…”