Individual‐plant selectivity by sheep in drylands scales‐up at plant population level and controls the forage supply and its accessibility

Abstract

1. Diet selectivity by domestic herbivores controls plant community structure and dynamics and may induce rangeland degradation, particularly in drylands.However, management decisions frequently ignore herbivore selectivity. Here, we studied how grass morphology controls sheep selectivity for individual plants, and how this selectivity interacts with grazing intensity to determine population plant-size distributions and the forage supply.2. In Patagonian steppes, we manipulated the plant morphology (size and standingdead proportion) of three dominant grass species differentially preferred by sheep for 4 years. Then, we evaluated how these morphological alterations affected intra-and inter-specific preference patterns. We also evaluated how grazing intensity (ungrazed, moderate grazing and intensive grazing) affected the plant-size distribution of the three species, the forage supply, and its accessibility.3. For the highly preferred species, herbivores selected plants that were either naturally or experimentally short, with low proportion of standing-dead biomass. In contrast, morphological changes did not alter the within-species selectivity of the least preferred species. 4. Grazing intensity strongly changed the population plant-size distribution of preferred species in ways that resembled the experimental manipulations of morphology. Moderate grazing showed the greatest morphological heterogeneity among individuals. When integrating the green biomass of forage species' individuals at ecosystem level, we found that the forage supply was the highest in ungrazed sites and decreased as grazing intensity increased. However, considering the dissuading effect of the standing-dead proportion of plants, the accessible forage was the highest under moderate grazing. 5. Synthesis and applications. Our findings (i) showed that, within preferred species, sheep selectivity at individual-plant level is controlled by morphological characteristics that determine accessibility to green high-quality biomass. This effect was as important as that of species identity; (ii) empirically proved plant-animal positive feedback at individual level; and (iii) revealed how the individual-plant selectivity scales-up at population level and controls the forage supply, but also | 1447

Effects of livestock grazing intensification on plant communities of Patagonian drylands increase with increasing aridity

“…Contrarily, in shrub–grass and grass steppes, grazing intensification slightly changed grass functional traits. The most noticeable change is that grazing intensification increased the C:N ratio in the shrub–grass steppe, which reduces grasses' palatability in this community (Oñatibia et al., 2023). This increment of grazing resistance is mainly explained by species replacement within the grass life‐form (Oñatibia & Aguiar, 2019).…”

Forage plants in grasslands with different topographies affect yak foraging preferences on the eastern Tibetan plateau

“…This directly affects the nutritional status of grazing herbivores from the environment and determines their dietary composition (Mancilla-Leytoń et al, 2021). Diet selection has been described as the search for and selection of high-quality plant resources by examining the grassland topography, composition and structure of vegetation, as well as the feeding possibility and quality of herbage (Zhang et al, 2022;Fan et al, 2023), altering the plant competition by favoring one species over another, and affecting the structure and function of grassland plant communities (Wan et al, 2015;Oñatibia et al, 2023). Therefore, studying herbivore diet selection in grassland ecosystems to examine the mechanisms of grazing herbivore diet selection strategy to analyze the relationship between grazing herbivores and plants and the development of grassland grazing management techniques is essential.…”