Use of GPS tracking collars on Sarda cattle in a Silvopastoral System

Acciaro, Marco

doi:10.19080/artoaj.2021.26.556337

Cited by 2 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Moreover, in this season, the animals avoided the central area of the pasture, furthest from the fences, due to the high presence of bracken in this area. This confirms what was stated by Acciaro et al ( 28 ), who found that the shrub-encroached grassland areas were avoided in the summer, in conjunction with the maximum presence of bracken ( Pteridium aquilinum (L.) Kuhn), which are unpalatable species containing antinutritional factors ( 63 ). In autumn, the area with the highest probability of use was predicted to be in the northwest of the pasture, at higher elevation, likely characterized by slightly higher pasture quality compared to warmer areas where, in a Mediterranean environment, the grass is almost completely dry at that time.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

“…between the 2 years of study). The Sarda breed is a small-to-medium-sized local breed, well-adapted to the harsh environment of Sardinian hilly and mountainous areas ( 28 ) Supplemantary data sheet 1 . The stocking rate was held steady throughout the study duration in an attempt to avoid confounding stocking rate effects.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Several environmental factors affect livestock behavior and consequent resource selection patterns. These factors include distance to water ( 24 , 28 ), composition of plant communities ( 29 ), degree of slope ( 30 ), and dense woody vegetation ( 31 ). Even the season is an important factor in the resource selection patterns of herbivores ( 32 ), being related to the length of daylight, which, according to the antipredator theory ( 33 ), impacts foraging behavior.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Resource selection by Sarda cattle in a Mediterranean silvopastoral system

Acciaro,

Pittarello,

Decandia

et al. 2024

Front. Vet. Sci.

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Knowledge of how grazing cattle utilize heterogeneous landscapes in Mediterranean silvopastoral areas is scarce. Global positioning systems (GPS) to track animals, together with geographic information systems (GIS), can relate animal distribution to landscape features. With the aim to develop a general spatial model that provides accurate prediction of cattle resource selection patterns within a Mediterranean mountainous silvopastoral area, free-roaming Sarda cows were fitted with GPS collars to track their spatial behaviors. Resource selection function models (RSF) were developed to estimate the probability of resource use as a function of environmental variables. A set of over 500 candidate RSF models, composed of up to five environmental predictor variables, were fitted to data. To identify a final model providing a robust prediction of cattle resource selection pattern across the different seasons, the 10 best models (ranked on the basis of the AIC score) were fitted to seasonal data. Prediction performance of the models was evaluated with a Spearman correlation analysis using the GPS position data sets previously reserved for model validation. The final model emphasized that watering point, elevation, and distance to fences were important factors affecting cattle resource-selection patterns. The prediction performances (as Spearman rank correlation scores) of the final model, when fitted to each season, ranged between 0.7 and 0.94. The cows were more likely to select areas lower in elevation and farther from the watering point in winter than in summer (693 ± 1 m and 847 ± 13 m vs. 707 ± 1 m and 635 ± 21 m, respectively), and in spring opted for the areas furthest from the water (963 ± 12). Although caution should be exercised in generalizing to other silvopastoral areas, the satisfactory Spearman correlations scores from the final RSF model applied to different seasons indicate resource selection function is a powerful predictive model. The relative importance of the individual predictors within the model varied among the different seasons, demonstrating the RSF model’s ability to interpret changes in animal behavior at different times of the year. The RSF model has proven to be a useful tool to interpret the spatial behaviors of cows grazing in Mediterranean silvopastoral areas and could therefore be helpful in managing and preserving ecosystem services of these areas.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Resource selection by Sarda cattle in a Mediterranean silvopastoral system

Acciaro,

Pittarello,

Decandia

et al. 2024

Front. Vet. Sci.

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Spatial Distribution and Habitat Selection of Sarda Cattle in a Silvopastoral Mediterranean Area

Acciaro

Bragaglio

Pittarello

et al. 2022

Animals

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The beef livestock system in Sardinia is based on suckler cows, often belonging to autochthonous breeds, such as the Sarda breed, and they often graze silvopastoral areas. Besides beef meat, silvopastoral systems (SPSs) provide several Ecosystem Services (ESs), such as timber provision, harvested as wood, and watershed protection. Livestock distribution is a critical factor for the sustainable use of SPSs (e.g., to avoid uneven grazing patterns) and information on patterns of spatial use are required. A study was conducted to determine: (i) the spatial distribution and (ii) the habitat selection of Sarda cattle grazing in a Mediterranean silvopastoral area. Over different seasons, 12 free-roaming adult Sarda cows were fitted with Global Positioning System (GPS) Knight tracking collars to calculate an index mapping of the incidence of livestock in the landscape (LRI) and a preference index (PI) for different areas. Since the PI data were not normally distributed, the Aligned Rank Transform (ART) procedure was used for the analysis. LRI was able to represent the spatial variability in resource utilization by livestock as a LRI map. Overall, the areas where the animals drank and received supplementation were strongly preferred by the cows, reaching PI values in the summer of 19.3 ± 4.9 (median ± interquartile range), whereas areas with predominantly rocks were strongly avoided (the worst PI value in the spring was 0.2 ± 0.6). Grasslands were, in general, used in proportion to their presence in the area, with slightly increased use in the spring (PI 1.1 ± 0.5). Forest area was avoided by cows, except in the spring when it was used in proportion to their presence in the area.

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Use of GPS tracking collars on Sarda cattle in a Silvopastoral System

Cited by 2 publications

References 28 publications

Resource selection by Sarda cattle in a Mediterranean silvopastoral system

Resource selection by Sarda cattle in a Mediterranean silvopastoral system

Spatial Distribution and Habitat Selection of Sarda Cattle in a Silvopastoral Mediterranean Area

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