Effects of cattle and rabbit grazing on clonal expansion of spiny shrubs in wood-pastures

Smit, Christian; Bakker, Elisabeth S.; Apol, M. E. F.; Olff, Han

doi:10.1016/j.baae.2010.08.010

Cited by 22 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…data), most likely due to the arrival and persistence of rabbit hemorrhagic disease (van de Bildt et al 2006). This is in line with Smit et al (2010) and Bakker et al (2004) who showed that rabbits play a crucial role in controlling the clonal expansion of established P. spinosa thickets into adjacent grassland. Our data suggest a similar strong impact of rabbits on the establishment of new Prunus recruits in the landscape.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

From protégé to nurse plant: establishment of thorny shrubs in grazed temperate woodlands

Smit

Ruifrok

2011

Journal of Vegetation Science

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Question: Thorny shrubs play keystone roles in grazed ecosystems by defending non‐protected plants against herbivores, but their establishment in grazed ecosystems is poorly understood. Which factors control establishment of recruits of thorny nurse shrubs in grazed temperate woodlands? Location: Ancient grazed temperate woodlands (52°32′N, 6°36′E), The Netherlands. Methods: We surveyed biotic and abiotic factors for saplings of thorny nurse shrubs in plots with and without saplings. To disentangle these factors, we performed a transplantation experiment over two growing seasons with nurse shrub saplings (Prunus spinosa and Crataegus monogyna) planted in two dominant vegetation types – tall unpalatable swards and short grazed lawns – half of them protected from herbivory via exclosures. Results: Plots with shrub saplings had taller surrounding vegetation, higher soil pH and higher soil moisture than plots without saplings. These plots predominantly contained unpalatable sward species, while plots without saplings mainly contained palatable lawn species. After transplantation, sapling survival was higher in exclosures than in the open, and higher in sward exclosures than in lawn exclosures. Sapling growth was higher in swards than in lawns, higher inside than outside exclosures, and higher for Prunus than Crataegus, while browsing on saplings was higher in lawns. Conclusion: Unpalatable swards form essential establishment niches for thorny shrubs in grazed temperate woodlands: they protect against herbivores before thorns fully develop in saplings, and sapling growth is better due to improved micro‐environmental conditions. Once established and thorny, shrub saplings grow out of the protective range of the swards and in turn facilitate tree seedlings, which are essential for long‐term persistence of grazed temperate woodlands. This study shows that nurse plants may start as protégés before becoming facilitators for other plants in a later life stage. This may be common for nurse plants in various ecosystems. We argue that improved understanding of establishment of nurse plants and their constraining factors is crucial for effective conservation and restoration in various ecosystems.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

From protégé to nurse plant: establishment of thorny shrubs in grazed temperate woodlands

Smit

Ruifrok

2011

Journal of Vegetation Science

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“…Clonal plants defend against large herbivores by regulating their morphological characteristics [56] . Clonal plant C. moocroftii in M3 was notably taller than in M1 and M2 because it was not bitten by livestock, and they can plastically respond to environmental heterogeneity by placing ramets and changing tiller size in favorable sites [57] , [58] .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Grazing Regimes on Plant Traits and Soil Nutrients in an Alpine Steppe, Northern Tibetan Plateau

et al. 2014

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Understanding the impact of grazing intensity on grassland production and soil fertility is of fundamental importance for grassland conservation and management. We thus compared three types of alpine steppe management by studying vegetation traits and soil properties in response to three levels of grazing pressure: permanent grazing (M1), seasonal grazing (M2), and grazing exclusion (M3) in the alpine steppe in Xainza County, Tibetan Plateau. The results showed that community biomass allocation did not support the isometric hypothesis under different grassland management types. Plants in M1 had less aboveground biomass but more belowground biomass in the top soil layer than those in M2 and M3, which was largely due to that root/shoot ratios of dominant plants in M1 were far greater than those in M2 and M3. The interramet distance and the tiller size of the dominant clonal plants were greater in M3 than in M1 and M2, while the resprouting from rhizome buds did not differ significantly among the three greezing regimes. Both soil bulk density and soil available nitrogen in M3 were greater than in M1 at the 15–30 cm soil depth (P = 0.05). Soil organic carbon and soil total nitrogen were greater in M3 than in M1 and M2 (P = 0.05). We conclude that the isometric hypothesis is not supported in this study and fencing is a helpful grassland management in terms of plant growth and soil nutrient retention in alpine steppe. The extreme cold, scarce precipitation and short growing period may be the causation of the unique plant and soil responses to different management regimes.

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“…In grasslands dominated by perennial species, trampling and defoliation can also influence the spatial extension and aggregation of clones by reducing clonal mobility (Bullock al. 1994;Tamm et al 2001), decreasing distance of lateral spread (Smit et al 2010;Benot et al 2011), through limitation of internode length (Amiaud et al 2008) or fragmentation of clone patches (Charpentier et al 1998). In addition, grazing may favor flowering and seed production in shorter stature plants, which would also limit seed dispersal (Thomson et al 2011).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Grazer exclusion alters plant spatial organization at multiple scales, increasing diversity

Zhang

Gilbert

Wang

et al. 2013

Ecology and Evolution

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Grazing is one of the most important factors influencing community structure and productivity in natural grasslands. Understanding why and how grazing pressure changes species diversity is essential for the preservation and restoration of biodiversity in grasslands. We use heavily grazed subalpine meadows in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau to test the hypothesis that grazer exclusion alters plant diversity by changing inter- and intraspecific species distributions. Using recently developed spatial analyses combined with detailed ramet mapping of entire plant communities (91 species), we show striking differences between grazed and fenced areas that emerged at scales of just one meter. Species richness was similar at very small scales (0.0625 m2), but at larger scales diversity in grazed areas fell below 75% of corresponding fenced areas. These differences were explained by differences in spatial distributions; intra- and interspecific associations changed from aggregated at small scales to overdispersed in the fenced plots, but were consistently aggregated in the grazed ones. We conclude that grazing enhanced inter- and intraspecific aggregations and maintained high diversity at small scales, but caused decreased turnover in species at larger scales, resulting in lower species richness. Our study provides strong support to the theoretical prediction that inter- and intraspecific aggregation produces local spatial patterns that scale-up to affect species diversity in a community. It also demonstrates that the impacts of grazing can manifest through this mechanism, lowering diversity by reducing spatial turnover in species. Finally, it highlights the ecological and physiological plant processes that are likely responding to grazing and thereby altering aggregation patterns, providing new insights for monitoring, and mediating the impacts of grazing.

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Effects of cattle and rabbit grazing on clonal expansion of spiny shrubs in wood-pastures

Cited by 22 publications

References 22 publications

From protégé to nurse plant: establishment of thorny shrubs in grazed temperate woodlands

From protégé to nurse plant: establishment of thorny shrubs in grazed temperate woodlands

Effects of Grazing Regimes on Plant Traits and Soil Nutrients in an Alpine Steppe, Northern Tibetan Plateau

Grazer exclusion alters plant spatial organization at multiple scales, increasing diversity

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