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Exotic-Dominated Grasslands Show Signs of Recovery with Cattle Grazing and Fire

In grasslands, overgrazing by domestic livestock, fertilization, and introduction of exotic forage species leads to plant communities consisting of a mixture of native and exotic species. These degraded grasslands present a problem for land managers, farmers, and restoration ecologists concerned wit...

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Autores principales: Delaney, John T., Moranz, Raymond A., Debinski, Diane M., Engle, David M., Miller, James R.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5098731/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27820838
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0165758
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author Delaney, John T.
Moranz, Raymond A.
Debinski, Diane M.
Engle, David M.
Miller, James R.
author_facet Delaney, John T.
Moranz, Raymond A.
Debinski, Diane M.
Engle, David M.
Miller, James R.
author_sort Delaney, John T.
collection PubMed
description In grasslands, overgrazing by domestic livestock, fertilization, and introduction of exotic forage species leads to plant communities consisting of a mixture of native and exotic species. These degraded grasslands present a problem for land managers, farmers, and restoration ecologists concerned with improving biodiversity while continuing to use the land for livestock production. Here we assessed the response of butterfly and plant community composition to the use of fire and moderate grazing by domestic cattle on degraded grasslands dominated by exotic plants. We evaluated change by comparing experimental pastures to two reference sites that were grasslands dominated by native plants. We used two burning and grazing treatments: 1) patch-burn graze, a heterogeneously managed treatment, where one third of the pasture is burned each year and cattle have free access to the entire pasture, and 2) graze-and-burn, a homogenously managed treatment, where the entire pasture is grazed each year and burned in its entirety every three years. We tested for change in the butterfly and plant community composition over seven years using Bray-Curtis dissimilarity measures. Over the course of seven years, degraded pastures in both treatments became more similar to reference sites with respect to the butterfly and plant communities. Only two butterfly species and two plant functional guilds exhibited significant linear trends over time, with varying responses. Compositional changes in both the butterfly and plant communities indicate that the use of moderate grazing and fire may shift butterfly and plant communities of exotic-dominated grasslands to be more similar to reference tallgrass prairies over time.
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spelling pubmed-50987312016-11-15 Exotic-Dominated Grasslands Show Signs of Recovery with Cattle Grazing and Fire Delaney, John T. Moranz, Raymond A. Debinski, Diane M. Engle, David M. Miller, James R. PLoS One Research Article In grasslands, overgrazing by domestic livestock, fertilization, and introduction of exotic forage species leads to plant communities consisting of a mixture of native and exotic species. These degraded grasslands present a problem for land managers, farmers, and restoration ecologists concerned with improving biodiversity while continuing to use the land for livestock production. Here we assessed the response of butterfly and plant community composition to the use of fire and moderate grazing by domestic cattle on degraded grasslands dominated by exotic plants. We evaluated change by comparing experimental pastures to two reference sites that were grasslands dominated by native plants. We used two burning and grazing treatments: 1) patch-burn graze, a heterogeneously managed treatment, where one third of the pasture is burned each year and cattle have free access to the entire pasture, and 2) graze-and-burn, a homogenously managed treatment, where the entire pasture is grazed each year and burned in its entirety every three years. We tested for change in the butterfly and plant community composition over seven years using Bray-Curtis dissimilarity measures. Over the course of seven years, degraded pastures in both treatments became more similar to reference sites with respect to the butterfly and plant communities. Only two butterfly species and two plant functional guilds exhibited significant linear trends over time, with varying responses. Compositional changes in both the butterfly and plant communities indicate that the use of moderate grazing and fire may shift butterfly and plant communities of exotic-dominated grasslands to be more similar to reference tallgrass prairies over time. Public Library of Science 2016-11-07 /pmc/articles/PMC5098731/ /pubmed/27820838 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0165758 Text en © 2016 Delaney et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Delaney, John T.
Moranz, Raymond A.
Debinski, Diane M.
Engle, David M.
Miller, James R.
Exotic-Dominated Grasslands Show Signs of Recovery with Cattle Grazing and Fire
title Exotic-Dominated Grasslands Show Signs of Recovery with Cattle Grazing and Fire
title_full Exotic-Dominated Grasslands Show Signs of Recovery with Cattle Grazing and Fire
title_fullStr Exotic-Dominated Grasslands Show Signs of Recovery with Cattle Grazing and Fire
title_full_unstemmed Exotic-Dominated Grasslands Show Signs of Recovery with Cattle Grazing and Fire
title_short Exotic-Dominated Grasslands Show Signs of Recovery with Cattle Grazing and Fire
title_sort exotic-dominated grasslands show signs of recovery with cattle grazing and fire
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5098731/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27820838
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0165758
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