In the semiarid, shortgrass steppe of North America, the Collaborative Adaptive Rangeland Management (CARM) project engaged an 11-member stakeholder group composed of ranchers, non-governmental conservation organization representatives, and state/federal agency personnel since 2012. The stakeholder and research team collaboratively implemented adaptive, multi-paddock (AMP) rotational grazing management, and compared multiple outcomes to those from traditional management of season-long grazing at the same stocking rate during the growing season (mid-May to October). The transdisciplinary scientific team collected and provided to the stakeholders monitoring data about vegetation, livestock, and wildlife habitat, including cattle foraging behaviour and movement dynamics, diet quality, distribution of grazing animals, remotely sensed standing biomass, grassland bird populations, animal weight gains, financial returns, soil health and carbon, and vegetation production, composition, structure, and diversity. A collaborative learning objective was added for co-production of new knowledge and its application to new areas, and increasing trust, respect, and understanding among participants. Iterative decision-making and learning within and across years have been documented through revised objectives, key triggers for drought planning and flexible stocking, and enhanced dashboards for tracking precipitation, soil moisture, forage conditions, and livestock diet quality. A key lesson learned is the importance of open and transparent communications through sustained engagement of stakeholders, leading to increased trust. Research results highlight that higher stocking density with AMP grazing consistently reduces animal weight gains and consequently financial returns in non-drought years through altering foraging behaviour and reducing diet quality. At the same time, vegetation heterogeneity across paddocks is enhanced with AMP grazing, providing a wider range of grassland bird habitat. Future directions include application of new technologies for precision livestock management (e.g., on-animal sensors, near-real-time remote sensing) for flexibility in within-season stocking density to address improvement of livestock performance and profitability, low-and high-vegetation structure for numerous ecosystem services, and greater drought resilience.
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