Habitat improvements with wildlife purposes in a grazed area on the Apennine Mountains

Abstract

In many European countries, the abandonment of traditional practices in the last decades produced remarkable effects on agricultural land use. In marginal mountain lands, one of the most evident outcomes is the reduction of the surfaces occupied by open habitats, mostly represented by meadows and pastures. The ecological consequences of reduced grazing in the pastures concerned not only the vegetation structure but also the floristic composition and the biodiversity of the herbaceous component, which is modified by the progressive establishment of woody species. For these reasons, it is important to carry out specific programs of habitat improvements in order to restore and maintain herbaceous vegetation, both for faunistic purposes and biodiversity conservation. In this note we describe the effectiveness of agronomical intervention carried out to enhance pasture quality in a protected area, once grazed by domestic animals, now utilised exclusively by wild fauna. The study was carried out for five years in a Regional Park (Parco Regionale dei Laghi di Suviana e Brasimone, Emilia Romagna, central Italy), in an experimental area where the vegetation was characterised by a high presence of bracken fern. Agronomical operations consisted of the restoration of a pasture, using an appropriate forage mixture. After the restoration, data collection concerned botanical composition, floristic richness and biodiversity of vegetation. Moreover, the utilization of single species by wild fauna was assessed by means of the defoliation rate methodology in order to evaluate the real consumption of each plant species. The results obtained in the studied area confirmed the efficiency of the improvement in terms of botanical composition and pastoral value of the pasture and they provided detailed information about selection of different plant species by wild ungulates.

Evaluation of wild animals browsing preferences in forage resources

“…Wild animals in our trial showed performances similar to what described by Orth et al (1998), by Moser et al (2008) or by Freschi et al (2014), concerning variability of animal utilisation according to seasonal changes in food resources availability, or by Boulanger et al (2015) that reported high browsing activity performed by wild ungulates on species of no quality or even toxic. Concerning level of utilisation, data of percentage of browsing is consistent with those of Ponzetta et al (2010) and Iussig et al (2015).…”

“…Thus we can say that animal selection is narrowly related to the vegetation context in which a species grows (Orth et al, 1998). The reduced importance of pastoral value to explain wild animals browsing in forage resources was already pointed out by Ponzetta et al (2010) and it is mainly due to specific indexes that are generally studied for domestic stocks. For these reasons, it was suggested to propose a list of specific indexes especially focused on wild animal intake to have a proper assessment of pastoral value for faunistic purposes .…”

“…Damage is caused on different kinds of crops, such as annual herbaceous crops or vineyards (Calenge et al, 2004;Bleier et al, 2016) or on forests, especially taking into account the difficulty of trees regeneration or growth (Gill and Beardall, 2001;Côté et al, 2004). To face this situation, habitat improvements are often performed to recreate suitable environments for animal species and to reduce damage in cultivated crops or natural resources (Ponzetta et al, 2010). A common example of these interventions is represented by grassland restoration (Genghini and Capizzi, 2005), performed as a consequence of changed technical and economic conditions in many hilly and mountainous areas (Giustini et al, 2007) that produced the decline of extensive grazing activity or pastoral practices (Argenti et al, 2011), with remarkable effects on productivity, forage quality e diversity of herbaceous coenoses (Targetti et al, 2013;Freschi et al, 2015;Pittarello et al, 2016).…”

Assessment of Grasslands Improvements for Faunistic Purposes in a Mountain Area of Central Italy

“…One of the most evident consequences due to abandonment is the contraction of the surface occupied by open habitats (Orlandi et al 2016), especially grasslands and pastures, in marginal territories that are re-colonised by shrubs and trees (Grau et al 2019). This is because many of these areas are mainly semi-natural resources and were created in the past to provide forage available to grazing animals (Feurdean et al 2018), their conservation is thus deeply linked to a proper management (Ponzetta et al 2010; Kulik et al 2020). The progressive afforestation causes as a consequence the reduction of biodiversity in these environments, particularly with respect to some plant species (Valkó et al 2018).…”

Inferring behaviour of grazing livestock: opportunities from GPS telemetry and activity sensors applied to animal husbandry

“…The assessment of sustainable grazing systems, aiming at the mitigation of negative impacts deriving from excessive or reduced grazing, such as biodiversity loss [1], requires specific knowledge of plant ecophysiology associated with herbivore grazing behaviour and dynamics [2]. Thus, understanding the drivers of resource selection and mechanisms adopted by animals in order to cope with environmental conditions is crucial in free-ranging systems [3].…”