Global plight of native temperate grasslands: going, going, gone?

Carbutt, Clinton; Henwood, William D.; Gilfedder, Louise

doi:10.1007/s10531-017-1398-5

Cited by 90 publications

(68 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Ecological restoration of human‐modified habitats has become a valuable tool in biodiversity conservation and management (Palmer et al ). Because of their utility as rangeland and for crop production, temperate grasslands are among the world's most threatened ecosystems (Carbutt et al ), making their protection and restoration a priority (State of Illinois ). Within the tallgrass prairie region of North America, restoration typically proceeds with the reestablishment of diverse native plant communities and natural disturbance regimes (fire, grazing).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Responses of grassland snakes to tallgrass prairie restoration

King

Vanek

2020

Restoration Ecology

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Understanding faunal responses to habitat restoration is important in assessing restoration success. We investigated occupancy and abundance of snakes at Nachusa Grasslands, a large-scale grassland restoration in the midwestern United States. Using artificial cover objects, we sampled within a chronosequence of 12 units converted from row-crop agriculture 2-25 years before the start of our study. Recaptures of marked snakes revealed that movement distances differed among species in accordance with differences in body size, being least in Dekay's Brownsnakes, intermediate in the Plains Gartersnakes and Common Gartersnakes, and greatest in Eastern Foxsnakes. Consistent with this result, occupancy increased with restoration age in Dekay's Brownsnakes but was unrelated to restoration age in the three larger, more mobile species. Similarly, abundance increased with restoration age in Dekay's Brownsnake but was unrelated to restoration age in other species. The Smooth Greensnake, another small-bodied snake with limited mobility, and an Illinois species of greatest conservation need, was not detected at Nachusa Grasslands. Given detection probabilities observed during a parallel study at a nearby large grassland-dominated preserve, we infer that the Smooth Greensnake is truly absent from Nachusa Grasslands. Taken together, our results demonstrate that establishment of faunal components following restoration may be time-dependent with more sedentary species colonizing only slowly (e.g. Dekay's Brownsnakes) or not at all (e.g. Smooth Greensnakes). These results emphasize the need to clearly identify faunal restoration goals and the means to achieve them. Implications for Practice• As higher order predators within grassland ecosystems, snakes provide a meaningful faunal component by which to measure restoration success.• Larger, more mobile snake species are able to occupy grassland restorations soon after conversion from rowcrop agriculture but occupancy by smaller, less mobile species may occur more slowly if at all.• Some grassland snakes may require active management to promote establishment following restoration.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Responses of grassland snakes to tallgrass prairie restoration

King

Vanek

2020

Restoration Ecology

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“…The role of livestock is important because, unlike climate change, grazing can be controlled by management and policy over the short term. Livestock impacts on temperate grasslands/rangelands across the world are of particular concern because these ecosystems are among the most endangered on Earth (Sala et al 2000, White et al 2000, Hoekstra et al 2005, Carbutt et al 2017.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Applying a dryland degradation framework for rangelands: the case of Mongolia

Jamsranjav

Reid

Fernández‐Giménez

et al. 2018

Ecological Applications

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Abstract. Livestock-caused rangeland degradation remains a major policy concern globally and the subject of widespread scientific study. This concern persists in part because it is difficult to isolate the effects of livestock from climate and other factors that influence ecosystem conditions. Further, degradation studies seldom use multiple plant and soil indicators linked to a clear definition of and ecologically grounded framework for degradation assessment that distinguishes different levels of degradation. Here, we integrate two globally applicable rangeland degradation frameworks and apply them to a broad-scale empirical data set for the country of Mongolia. We compare our assessment results with two other recent national rangeland degradation assessments in Mongolia to gauge consistency of findings across assessments and evaluate the utility of our framework. We measured livestock-use impacts across Mongolia's major ecological zones: mountain and forest steppe, eastern steppe, steppe, and desert steppe. At 143 sites in 36 counties, we measured livestock-use and degradation indicators at increasing distances from livestock corrals in winter-grazed pastures. At each site, we measured multiple indicators linked to our degradation framework, including plant cover, standing biomass, palatability, species richness, forage quality, vegetation gaps, and soil surface characteristics. Livestock use had no effect on soils, plant species richness, or standing crop biomass in any ecological zone, but subtly affected plant cover and palatable plant abundance. Livestock effects were strongest in the steppe zone, moderate in the desert steppe, and limited in the mountain/forest and eastern steppes. Our results aligned closely with those of two other recent country-wide assessments, suggesting that our framework may have widespread application. All three assessments found that very severe and irreversible degradation is rare in Mongolia (1-18% of land area), with most rangelands slightly (33-53%) or moderately (25-40%) degraded. We conclude that very severe livestock-induced rangeland degradation is overstated in Mongolia. However, targeted rangeland restoration coupled with monitoring, adaptive management and stronger rangeland governance are needed to prevent further degradation where heavy grazing could cause irreversible change. Given the broad applicability of our degradation framework for Mongolia, we suggest it be tested for application in other temperate grasslands throughout Central Asia and North America.

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“…Globally, interacting climate, land-use, political and economic changes threaten the sustainability of rangelands, the pastoral cultures they support, and ecosystem services they provide [1]. Temperate grasslands, like those of northern Eurasia, are among the most imperiled ecosystems on Earth [2,3]. In Mongolia, where 80% of the land area is grassland, the combined impacts of these threats have altered rangeland governance, livestock markets, and ultimately pastoral land use patterns and livelihoods, undermining the future sustainability of Mongolia's rangelands and pastoral culture.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using an integrated social-ecological analysis to detect effects of household herding practices on indicators of rangeland resilience in Mongolia

Fernández‐Giménez

Allington

Angerer

et al. 2018

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Temperate grasslands, including those of northern Eurasia, are among the most imperiled ecosystems on Earth. Eighty percent of Mongolia's land area is rangeland, where interacting climate, land-use and changes in governance threaten the sustainability of Mongolia's rangelands and pastoral culture. Particularly concerning are the potential ecological impacts of changing pastoral grazing practices-namely declining use of grazing reserves and pastoral mobility. However, like other grazing practices globally, there have been no empirical studies to evaluate the effects of specific Mongolian grazing practices on ecological function at a management scale. We collected data on the grazing practices of 130 pastoral households across four ecological zones and sampled ecological conditions in their winter pastures. We used a novel social-ecological analysis process to (1) develop integrated, holistic indicators of ecological function using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, and (2) assess the effects of individual grazing practices on these indicators using statistical matching to control for confounding management and contextual factors. We identified two latent factors related to ecological and pastoral resilience: Factor 1 represents resource retention and soil stability and Factor 2 represents species richness and functional diversity. Using these two factors as response variables, we found that the values of both resilience factors were higher in pastures where households made fall or winter otor migrations or set aside grazing reserves. This study provides the first management-scale empirical test of the ecological response to specific grazing practices in Mongolia, using an approach that can be applied in other rangeland systems. Our findings highlight the importance to ecological and pastoral resilience of supporting traditional pastoral practices of mobility and grazing reserves, while also controlling stocking densities, increasing rangeland monitoring, and ensuring equitable access to state-designated emergency grazing reserves at local, regional, and national levels.

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Global plight of native temperate grasslands: going, going, gone?

Cited by 90 publications

References 25 publications

Responses of grassland snakes to tallgrass prairie restoration

Responses of grassland snakes to tallgrass prairie restoration

Applying a dryland degradation framework for rangelands: the case of Mongolia

Using an integrated social-ecological analysis to detect effects of household herding practices on indicators of rangeland resilience in Mongolia

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