Applying spatio-chemical analysis to grassland ecosystems for the illustration of chemoscapes and creation of healthscapes

Abstract

Grasslands are heterogeneous landscapes composed of a diversity of herbaceous and shrub vegetation that varies not only taxonomically, but biochemically in terms of primary and secondary compounds. Plant Secondary Compounds (PSC) have specific nutritional, medicinal, and prophylactic properties, to which benefits depend upon dosage, type, arrangements, and concentration that changes between and within plants across time and space. The knowledge of the plant content of PSC and their distribution in grazing environments would therefore contribute to the design and creation of healthier foodscapes for ruminants; in other words, healthscapes. Geographic information systems (GIS) have been used extensively for landscape visualization and assessment, through several spatial analysis techniques applied for the creation of virtual maps to add valuable information to a particular environment. Given the knowledge of plants and their composition, GIS emerges as a readily available and low-cost tool to assess and evaluate the distribution of plants with beneficial PSC in large and heterogeneous foodscapes. We present and propose for the very first time, the application and use of GIS to determine the spatial distribution of PSC rich plants with nutraceutical properties to illustrate, visualize, and generate healthscapes for grazing ruminants. We present healthscape maps created using botanical composition analyses and advanced image classification methods to illustrate the distribution of plants regarding their PSC and nutraceutical properties. Such maps add an extra dimension and perspective to plant chemical composition, enabling graziers to visualize in space and time centers of nutrition and prophylactics or medicines, contributing to advanced grazing management decisions toward more productive, sustainable, and healthy grazing systems. The valuable information behind the mapped PSC advances the understanding of the nutritional ecology of grazing environments and foodscapes, introducing a new dimension to the holistic management of pastoral livestock production systems.

A Geospatial Modelling Approach to Assess the Capability of High-Country Stations in Delivering Ecosystem Services

“…A predominant tree of LUMGS is kānuka (Kunzea ericoides) an indigenous New Zealand specie that is highly used for honey production, and whose leaves contain several medicinal properties, such as antibacterial, antioxidant, and anti-inflammatory [72]. Although not measured here, the benefits of having Kānuka at the station are extended to enriched chemoscape and then the healthscape value of the station [73,74], in addition to increasing the multifunctionality due to honey production [75], the landscape biodiversity, the aesthetic, and cultural values, and providing shelter for animals [76].…”

Functional adaptive resources for large herbivores in African savannas: an ecological-gradient based framework

“…FAR mapping will also provide an objective approach to habitat suitability assessments for different large herbivore species, allowing an assessment on whether certain large herbivore species can be introduced to a conservation area and where certain forage resource deficits may occur. Pereira and Gregorini (2022) show how remote sensing and GIS can be used to assess the spatial distribution of phytochemically-rich plants thus enabling people to visualize potential healthscapes for wild or domestic herbivores. The maps they created using advanced image classification of botanical composition and phytochemicals show the distribution of phytochemicals in plants in ways that enable managers to make better grazing management decisions for more productive, sustainable, and healthy grazing systems.…”