Recent land use and management changes decouple the adaptation of livestock diversity to the environment

Abstract

Native livestock breeds, i.e. those autochthonous to a specific region, are locally adapted domesticated animals that conserve genetic resources, guaranty food security and provide agroecosystem services. Native breeds are largely threatened worldwide by agricultural intensification and rural areas abandonment processes related to recent changes in production schemes and planning. Yet, our gap of knowledge regarding livestock breed-environment relationships may prevent the design of successful conservation measures. In this work, we analyse the links between livestock diversity -i.e. richness of native breeds- and a selection of environmental factors that express at broad scales, with a temporal perspective. We compare native breeds distributional patterns before and after the agricultural intensification, in the context of land-use change in mainland Spain. Our results confirm the existence of strong associations between the distribution of native livestock breeds and environmental factors. These links, however, weaken for contemporary distributions. In fact, changes in breed distribution reflect a shift towards more productive environments. Finally, we found that the areas having higher breed richness are undergoing land abandonment processes. Succeeding in the conservation of threatened native breeds will require going beyond merely genetic and production-oriented views. Ecological and sociocultural perspectives should also be accounted for as global change processes are determinant for livestock agrobiodiversity.

A Dynamic Performance and Differentiation Management Policy for Urban Construction Land Use Change in Gansu, China

“…It is noteworthy that, unlike their Chinese counterparts, international scholars mainly focus on agricultural capitalization, food (grain) production, and ecological effects in their research on land use decoupling relationships [124,125]. For example, Acs [126] and Serra [127] analyzed the decoupling of agricultural land from agricultural income and farm crop structure; De Molina [128] and Millones [129] analyzed the decoupling of land use from food (grain) production; Pikaar [130] and Velado-Alonso [131] further refined it to the decoupling of land use from livestock production; Nelson [132] and Smart [133] took attention to the decoupling of land use from ecological change.…”

Disentangling the Multidimensional Relationship between Livestock Breeds and Ecosystem Services

“…By making the breed-environment relationship explicit, we open the way for more sustainable production systems with more coherent connections between the environment, local resources, and livestock uses and practices. The separation of breeds from their native environment is a current trend [51]. This decoupling could diminish their ability to cope with a challenging environment.…”

“…Therefore, breed substitutions in a given agroecosystem would potentially lead to a variation in ES provision. However, the comparative ecology and biogeography of livestock breeds have been largely neglected [51], and the specific role of livestock breeds in the provision of supporting and regulating ESs is not well understood. This is partly because the ecology of livestock breeds intertwines with anthropogenic factors, e.g., those derived from human modification of environments, biotic communities, and inheritance processes, as well as culture and social behavior [38,63].…”

Qualitative Characters of Indigenous Sheep in Central Brazil: Putting Phenotype into Perspective

“…Ceramic coated artefact containing a chip with a unique number, applied orally (30 g; diameter: 11 mm (3 g/cm 3 ).…”

“…Worldwide, there has been a trend towards the extinction of indigenous breeds, likely due to the establishment of new commodity-driven agricultural frontiers associated with land-use change and agricultural intensification, which compete with traditional farming systems [1][2][3]. In South America, most of the livestock originate from early colonisation in the 15th century.…”