Animals continue to play major ecological roles that go beyond their immediate requirements for food or habitat. In many cases, they are responsible for biogeochemical, successional, and landscape alterations that may persist for centuries. In only a few cases have the implications of changes at the population and community level have been examined at the ecosystem level. These changes can cause alterations to the ecosystem that cannot necessarily be predicted beforehand. The alterations that large animals have can be either positive or negative influences upon the forage base and the consumers themselves. Under certain conditions, moose foraging on deciduous plants can shift the forest community towards conifers which produce a low-quality litter. Over several decades, this shift affects soil formation and nitrogen cycling, which affect the productivity of spruce, longer-term plant succession in the forest, and the population dynamics of the moose. The activities of tree-cutting beavers and defoliating insects are not always bad. Over the longer term, the consumers and the forage base interact to influence critical community and ecosystem processes, thus developing a variety of system feedbacks that would not usually exist.
Citations and enhanced abstracts for journals articles and documents focused on rangeland ecology and management. RSIS is a collaboration between Montana State University, University of Idaho, and University of Wyoming.