Dataset Information

Riparian Meadow Response to Modern Conservation Grazing Management.

ABSTRACT: Riparian meadows occupy a small proportion of the public lands in the western United States but they provide numerous ecosystem services, including the production of high-quality forage for livestock grazing. Modern conservation management strategies (e.g., reductions in livestock stocking rates and adoption of new riparian grazing standards) have been implemented to better balance riparian conservation and livestock production objectives on publicly managed lands. We examined potential relationships between long-term changes in plant community, livestock grazing pressure and environmental conditions at two spatial scales in meadows grazed under conservation management strategies. Changes in plant community were not associated with either livestock stocking rate or precipitation at the grazing allotment (i.e., administrative) scale. Alternatively, both grazing pressure and precipitation had significant, albeit modest, associations with changes in plant community at the meadow (i.e., ecological site) scale. These results suggest that reductions in stocking rate have improved the balance between riparian conservation and livestock production goals. However, associations between elevation, site wetness, precipitation, and changes in plant community suggest that changing climate conditions (e.g., reduced snowpack and changes in timing of snowmelt) could trigger shifts in plant communities, potentially impacting both conservation and agricultural services (e.g., livestock and forage production). Therefore, adaptive, site-specific management strategies are required to meet grazing pressure limits and safeguard ecosystem services within individual meadows, especially under more variable climate conditions.

SUBMITTER: Oles KM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5544782 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Riparian Meadow Response to Modern Conservation Grazing Management.

Oles Kristin M KM Weixelman Dave A DA Lile David F DF Tate Kenneth W KW Snell Laura K LK Roche Leslie M LM

Environmental management 20170602 3

Riparian meadows occupy a small proportion of the public lands in the western United States but they provide numerous ecosystem services, including the production of high-quality forage for livestock grazing. Modern conservation management strategies (e.g., reductions in livestock stocking rates and adoption of new riparian grazing standards) have been implemented to better balance riparian conservation and livestock production objectives on publicly managed lands. We examined potential relation ...[more]

PMID: 28577051

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Project description:Domestic livestock grazing has caused dramatic changes in plant community composition across the globe. However, the response of plant species abundance in communities subject to grazing has not often been investigated through a functional lens, especially for belowground traits. Grazing directly impacts aboveground plant tissues, but the relationships between above- and belowground traits, and their influence on species abundance are also not well known. We collected plant trait and species relative abundance data in the grazed and nongrazed meadow plant communities in a species-rich subalpine ecosystem of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. We measured three aboveground traits (leaf photosynthesis rate, specific leaf area, and maximum height) and five belowground traits (root average diameter, root biomass, specific root length, root tissue density, and specific root area). We tested for shifts in the relationship between species relative abundance and among all measured traits under grazing compared with the nongrazed meadow. We also compared the power of above- and belowground traits to predict species relative abundance. We observed a significant shift from a resource conservation strategy to a resource acquisition strategy. Moreover, this resource conservation versus resource acquisition trade-off can also determine species relative abundance in the grazed and nongrazed plant communities. Specifically, abundant species in the nongrazed meadow had aboveground and belowground traits that are associated with high resource conservation, whereas aboveground and belowground traits that are correlated with high resource acquisition determined species relative abundance in the grazed meadow. However, belowground traits were found to explain more variances in species relative abundance than aboveground traits in the nongrazed meadow, while aboveground and belowground traits had comparable predictive power in the grazed meadow. We show that species relative abundance in both the grazed and the nongrazed meadows can be predicted by both aboveground traits and belowground traits associated with a resource acquisition versus conservation trade-off. More importantly, we show that belowground traits have higher predictive power of species relative abundance than aboveground traits in the nongrazed meadow, whereas in the grazed meadows, above- and belowground traits had comparable high predictive power.

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Dataset Information

Riparian Meadow Response to Modern Conservation Grazing Management.

Publications

Riparian Meadow Response to Modern Conservation Grazing Management.

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