Rangeland Ecology & Management
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- Library Collection Record
1 Savanna
Savannas are characterized by the coexistence of trees and grasses and occur largely in the seasonal tropics between the equatorial rainforests and mid-latitude desert ecosystems. This article…Publication Date 2008- climate change
- Deciduous
- Evergreen
- fire
- grazing
- herbivory
- phenology
- Seasonal tropics
- soils
- Tree and grass competition
- savanna
- ecology
- animal impact
- grasslands
- rainfall
- southern Africa
- Library Collection RecordAn overview of ecological models of grasslands and their research questions is presented. For the purpose of this article, models are regarded as a simplified and formalized representation of…Publication Date 2008
- competition
- disturbance
- Ecosystem modeling
- Grassland dynamics
- grazing
- Optimal life-history strategies
- primary production
- Remote sensing data
- Spatially explicit models
- succession
- modelling
- ecosystem ecology
- community
- vegetation dynamics
- plant production
- southern Africa
- Library Collection RecordAbstract Livestock grazing is often viewed as having detrimental effects on plants and plant communities. Livestock grazing can, however, be managed to be an effective tool for vegetation management…Publication Date 2010
- livestock
- grazing
- nutrition
- ecology
- management
- vegetation dynamics
- ecosystem ecology
- fire ecology
- southern Africa
- Library Collection RecordIn the Sahel and the Kalahari, the growth in groundwater extraction via simple wells and boreholes is contributing to an increased use of dryland natural resources, to competition for resources, and…Publication Date 2003
- rangeland condition
- rainfall
- groundwater
- animal production
- vegetation dynamics
- biodiversity
- bush thickening
- indigenous encroaching species
- southern Africa
- Library Collection RecordVegetation dominated by grasses, which is among the largest ecosystems in the world, has great environmental significance as well as providing feed for livestock and wildlife. Grassland types vary…Publication Date 2001
- savannah
- steppe
- grasses
- herbivory
- grazing
- fire
- savanna
- grasslands
- disturbance
- livestock
- southern Africa
- Library Collection RecordThe chapter describes different patches that are included in a single landscape unit. Patches differ in size, species composition, and the way they function in a landscape. Patches may be composed of…Publication Date 2002
- vegetation dynamics
- ecology
- southern Africa
- Library Collection RecordWe introduce the five rangeland types found in the arid and semiarid regions of South Africa, namely Arid Savanna, Arid Grassland, Nama-karoo, Succulent Karoo, and Thicket, and describe the important…Publication Date 2006
- rangelands
- savanna
- livestock
- grazing
- management
- commercial agriculture
- subsistence agriculture
- Sustainable development
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordAbstract Question: Do anthropogenic activities facilitate the distribution of exotic plants along steep altitudinal gradients? Location: Sani Pass road, Grassland biome, South Africa. Methods: On…Publication Date 2008
- Alien
- dispersal
- disturbance
- Gradient analysis
- grasslands
- Multivariate
- spatial analysis
- transect
- Germishuizen & Meyer (2003)
- Alien invasive species
- rehabilitation
- restoration ecology
- management
- biodiversity
- seed banks
- vegetation dynamics
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordNo abstract availablePublication Date 2007
- seed banks
- savanna
- vegetation dynamics
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordSummary * 1Grasses using the C4 photosynthetic pathway dominate today's savanna ecosystems and account for ~20% of terrestrial carbon fixation. However, this dominant status was reached only…Publication Date 2008
- atmospheric CO2
- C4 plants
- climate change
- fire
- grasslands
- grazing
- Poaceae
- rainfall
- savanna
- seasonality
- carbon dioxide
- palaeoclimate
- palaeobotany
- Africa
- Library Collection Record1. Gradients of animal impact known as piospheres tend to develop around artificial watering points, particularly in arid zones. Such grazing gradients represent a potential opportunity for…Publication Date 2006
- animal impact
- piosphere
- watering points
- livestock
- species richness
- ecosystem ecology
- rangelands
- grazing
- management
- disturbance
- stocking rates
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordAbstract Anthropogenic perturbations have profoundly modified the Earth's biogeochemical cycles, the most prominent of these changes being manifested by global carbon (C) cycling. We…Publication Date 2007
- carbon sequestration
- 13C NMR
- deforestation
- land-use change
- NEXAFS
- organic matter composition
- Sr-FTIR-ATR
- synchrotron radiation
- land use
- grasslands
- vegetation dynamics
- carbon dynamics
- soil organic carbon
- agriculture
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordSummary * 1Demographic processes, particularly the recruitment of seedlings, are critical to the long-term survival and re-establishment of plant populations. In many perennial grasslands successful…Publication Date 2008
- demography
- emergence
- full factorial experiment
- intraspecific competition
- irrigation
- recruitment limitation
- seed addition
- seedling survival
- semi-arid savanna
- Stipagrostis uniplumis
- grasslands
- fire ecology
- seeds
- ecosystem ecology
- vegetation dynamics
- germination
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordIn Kenya, lands surrounding wildlife protected areas (PAs), referred to as dispersal areas, have undergone widespread land use changes, but these have been little studied. This study investigated…Publication Date 2008
- conservation
- agriculture
- national parks
- land use
- grazing
- biodiversity
- disturbance
- rainfall
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordThe morphometrics of mandible and teeth of mixed-breed goats on rangeland were analyzed to investigate the association between the oral apparatus and diet type. Canonical relationship between sets of…Publication Date 2007
- diet
- grazing
- Mandible
- Jaw
- Incisor
- Molar teeth
- goats
- rangelands
- diet selection
- forage quality
- foraging ecology
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordThe aim of the study was to identify and classify the woodlands, bushland and grasslands of the Umkhanyakude Integrated Sustainable Rural Development Node (also known as Maputaland) into homogenous…Publication Date 2006
- plant ecology
- Maputaland
- multivariate analysis
- Phytosociology
- grasslands
- monitoring
- data analysis
- landscape ecology
- vegetation dynamics
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordThis paper evaluated the capacity of SPOT VEGETATION time-series to monitor the vegetation biomass and water content in order to improve fire risk assessment in the savanna ecosystem of Kruger…Publication Date 2006
- biomass
- Fire risk assessment
- SPOT VEGETATION
- time-series
- Vegetation water content
- fire ecology
- savanna
- vegetation dynamics
- monitoring
- plant production
- national parks
- remote sensing
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordCoexistence of trees and grasses in savannas should be possible if competition between the woody and the grassy components is less intense than the competition within each component. Although several…Publication Date 2008
- Acacia mellifera
- Competitor removal experiment
- Nearest-neighbour distance
- quantile regression
- spatial autocorrelation
- Spatial point pattern analysis
- savanna
- ecosystem ecology
- vegetation dynamics
- ecology
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordThe tree-grass interactions of African savannas are mainly determined by varying rainfall patterns and soil fertility. Large savanna trees are known to modify soil nutrient conditions, but whether…Publication Date 2007
- canopy
- Fibre content
- Grass structure
- grazing
- nitrogen
- phosphorus
- savanna
- rainfall
- soil fertility
- plant production
- nutrition
- soil organic carbon
- biomass
- forage quality
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordThe coexistence of woody and grassy plants in savannas has often been attributed to a rooting-niche separation (two-layer hypothesis). Water was assumed to be the limiting resource for both growth…Publication Date 2006
- fire
- grazing
- Honeycomb rippling model
- Inter-tree competition
- Spatio-temporal rainfall variation
- Tree-grass coexistence
- savanna
- indigenous encroaching species
- grasslands
- soil moisture
- rainfall
- vegetation dynamics
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordSummary In this paper, we present a method to estimate the additional costs made by nature reserve managers to mitigate the effects of atmospheric deposition. Theoretically, these extra costs may be…Publication Date 2007
- Nature target types
- Management costs
- Deposition scenarios
- grasslands
- Reed and rough land
- Heathland
- forests
- Moorland pools
- conservation
- vegetation dynamics
- Economic Aspects
- greenhouse gases
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordThis paper reports an assessment of the current and potential impacts of invasive alien plants on selected ecosystem services in South Africa. We used data on the current and potential future…Publication Date 2008
- biodiversity
- Fynbos
- grassland
- grazing
- groundwater
- hydrology
- Karoo
- savanna
- water yield
- Alien invasive species
- ecosystem services
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordNamibian rangelands are encroached with Acacia mellifera, partially resulting from a poor understanding of vegetation dynamics. A conceptual state-and-transition model of vegetation dynamics in the…Publication Date 2008
- fire
- hazards
- management
- opportunities
- state-and-transition
- savanna
- indigenous encroaching species
- bush thickening
- rainfall
- seed banks
- vegetation dynamics
- plant autecology
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordWe tested the scaling effects of proximate desertification drivers (i.e. soil erosion, bush encroachment and grazing pressure) on soil nutrients in northeastern Tanzania. We analyzed nutrient…Publication Date 2008
- Desertified landscapes
- Dysfunctional landscapes
- Proximate desertification drivers
- soil nutrients
- Tanzaniadesertification
- erosion
- grazing
- indigenous encroaching species
- desertification
- landscape ecology
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordNo abstract availablePublication Date 2007
- agriculture
- soils
- Soil Condition
- grazing
- rangeland condition
- ecosystem dynamics
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordA number of studies have begun to show the large impact that pastoralism has on African savanna ecosystems. Here we look at the impact of abandoned settlements on the distribution of the large…Publication Date 2008
- pastoralism
- Sedentarization
- primary succession
- Nutrient hotspots
- community
- land use
- Abandoned lands
- vegetation dynamics
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordThe ability to produce vegetative shoots is a form of persistence in arid and semiarid savannas allowing trees to survive herbivory, fire and cutting. In terms of growth rates and survival, this form…Publication Date 2008
- browsing
- coppice
- Exclosure
- grazing
- Resprouting
- restoration
- Savanna woodland
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordChanges in species richness and vegetation composition in the diverse semi-arid Succulent Karoo vegetation of South Africa were investigated after 67 (1937-2004) years of rest from livestock grazing…Publication Date 2008
- diversity
- Growth Form
- ordination
- species richness
- succession
- Termitaria
- grazing
- vegetation dynamics
- ecology
- insects
- degradation
- restoration ecology
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordThis paper provides values for nitrogen isotopic abundances of southern African soils and plants along land use gradients of varying aridity. The ?15N values of soils and plants were generally higher…Publication Date 2008
- grasses
- grazing
- mineralization
- nitrification
- savanna
- trees
- soils
- grazing
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordThe Kalahari sand sheet, with a 2.5-million ha area, is probably the largest continuous surface of sand in the world. The Kalahari Transect (KT) is one of a set of IGBP 'megatransects '…Publication Date 2007
- biogeochemistry
- Hydraulic properties
- Kalahari transect
- Sand deposits
- stable isotopes
- ecosystem dynamics
- vegetation dynamics
- soil organic carbon
- Soil Condition
- soil nutrients
- rainfall
- grasslands
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordModels predict that desertification, the loss of perennial grasses in arid and semiarid environments, will be difficult to reverse due to the positive feedback between plant cover and water…Publication Date 2007
- arid grassland
- grazing
- hoof action
- perennial grass
- resilience
- restoration
- woody encroachment
- soils
- desertirfication
- models
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordThe impact of long-term high grazing pressure on geomorphological features, plant community composition and cover and soil characteristics of an ephemeral river system in Namaqualand, South Africa,…Publication Date 2007
- Animal-plant interactions
- Landscape patches
- livestock impacts
- Namaqualand
- Resource control
- riparian vegetation
- grazing
- soils
- degradation
- Plant Productivity
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordIn Namaqualand, heavy grazing of low-lying areas has resulted in the reduction of palatable perennial shrubs and the dominance of the unpalatable shrub, Galenia africana. This study investigates the…Publication Date 2007
- Succulent karoo
- Namaqualand
- Vegetation Change
- rehabilitation
- microhabitats
- grazing
- seeds
- restoration ecology
- vegetation dynamics
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordA national-level land degradation risk monitoring system identified an important grazing area in central northern Namibia as an area at risk of environmental change. A time series analysis of primary…Publication Date 2007
- semi-arid
- local knowledge
- rainfall variability
- water supply
- grazing
- land management
- degradation
- data analysis
- grasslands
- livestock
- rainfall
- participatory rural appraisal
- decision support systems
- management
- traditional knowledge
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordWe use the concept of ecological revolutions to explain the environmental history of Namaqualand, from the advent of pastoralism 2000 years BP, to colonial settlement in the 18th century and finally…Publication Date 2007
- degradation
- Environmental history
- human impact
- population
- repeat photography
- socio-economic aspects
- agriculture
- grazing
- management
- land use
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordHerder knowledge of landscape classification and environmental assessments in East Africa has been poorly documented. This study investigated how the Maasai traditionally classified and assessed…Publication Date 2006
- land degradation
- Livestock grazing preference
- Maasai
- Traditional landscape classification
- traditional knowledge
- subsistence agriculture
- degradation
- grasslands
- grazing
- management
- pastoralism
- soils
- animal impact
- biodiversity
- forage quality
- animal nutrition
- animal production
- monitoring
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordThe objective of this paper is to examine the spatial variability of islands of enhanced hydrologic activity and its application to remediation of degraded arid and semi-arid ecosystems. Factors…Publication Date 2006
- Biotic productivity
- heterogeneity
- rangeland
- remediation
- runoff
- Water ponding dikes
- restoration ecology
- degradation
- vegetation dynamics
- ecosystem ecology
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordOver 70% of South Africa is too arid for crop farming and is used for either commercial livestock ranching, communal livestock ranching, or game ranching. The inherently different management…Publication Date 2006
- Semi-arid rangeland
- pastoralism
- wildlife
- rangeland degradation
- Soil Condition
- Grazing gradients
- rangeland condition
- management
- piosphere
- grazing
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordThis paper provides an analysis of the physical and chemical characteristics of cyanobacterial soil crusts in the Molopo Basin, South Africa. It details the influence that soil type, livestock…Publication Date 2006
- cyanobacterial soil crusts
- Kalahari
- soil nutrients
- shrub encroachment
- Acacia mellifera
- soil classification
- livestock
- disturbance
- grasslands
- grazing
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordDegradation in semi-arid Karoo rangelands has been ascribed to over-utilization by livestock and variations in rainfall regime. The understanding of vegetation dynamics in confined plant-herbivore…Publication Date 2006
- African wild herbivore
- Herbivore exclosure
- plant functional type
- Protected area
- vegetation monitoring
- rangelands
- rangeland condition
- vegetation dynamics
- livestock
- grazing
- land use
- national parks
- rainfall
- monitoring
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordAs part of an investigation of land degradation in the South African Karoo, three types of fine sediment signatures (radionuclides, mineral magnetism and sediment geochemistry) were used to trace the…Publication Date 2007
- Sediment fingerprinting
- South African Karoo
- Erosion history
- Extreme events
- 137Cs and 210Pb
- land use
- soils
- management
- grazing
- fire
- livestock
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordLocalised patterns of erosion and deposition in vegetated semi-arid rangelands have been shown to influence ecological change and biogeochemical cycles. In the flat, vegetated Kalahari rangelands of…Publication Date 2007
- cyanobacterial soil crusts
- Erodibility
- surface roughness
- Cohesivity
- Kalahari
- erosion
- rangeland condition
- ecosystem dynamics
- soil crusts
- grazing
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordIn the Miombo Woodlands Region of south-central Africa, the interaction between fires and elephants is one of the main drivers of vegetation, along with climate, soils and topography. Fire-elephant…Publication Date 2008
- fire
- Elephants
- multivariate statistics
- Miombo woodlands
- conservation
- savanna
- mammals
- Nature reserves
- vegetation dynamics
- ecology
- ecosystem ecology
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordRemote sensing has successfully been applied to map the distribution of canopy dominating invasive species. Many invaders however, do not dominate the canopy, and remote sensing has so far not been…Publication Date 2006
- remote sensing
- GIS
- Chromolaena odorata
- seed production
- light intensity
- invasive species
- mapping
- Alien invasive species
- Landsat images
- grazing
- biological control
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordThis paper traces the history of grazing policy, its conceptual basis, practical implementations and outcomes, in three southern African countries. In spite of the divergent environmental conditions…Publication Date 2006
- pastoralism
- Communal land
- rangeland management
- rangeland ecology
- policies
- grazing
- communal farming
- rangelands
- management
- Sustainable development
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordThe self-thinning line is a very robust pattern, which can be obtained in modeling studies by a variety of different mechanistic assumptions. Our opinion is that we can only advance in our…Publication Date 2008
- Size inequality
- Competitive asymmetry
- Zone of influence model
- Arid savanna
- Acacia reficiens
- Namibia
- Parsimony
- Pattern-oriented modeling
- savanna
- vegetation dynamics
- modelling
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordMany mechanisms have been suggested to explain the coexistence of woody species and grasses in savannas, yet, evidence from field studies and simulation models has been mixed. Shrub encroachment is…Publication Date 2007
- Patch-dynamics
- Cyclical succession
- shrub encroachment
- Spatially explicit root growth
- Computer simulation model
- Validation
- Latin Hypercube sensitivity analysis
- Acacia mellifera
- savanna
- indigenous encroaching species
- vegetation dynamics
- ecosystem ecology
- modelling
- rainfall
- fire
- soil moisture
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordIn semiarid savannas of Southern Africa current land use practices and climate change may lead to substantial changes of vegetation structure in the near future, however uncertainty remains about the…Publication Date 2006
- Acacia erioloba
- Bush encroachment
- global change
- Grewia flava
- overgrazing
- seed dispersal
- shrub encroachment
- Southern Kalahari
- Spatial-explicit simulation model
- savanna
- land use
- grazing
- climate change
- vegetation dynamics
- cattle
- ecosystem ecology
- ecosystem dynamics
- rainfall
- fire ecology
- modelling
- conservation
- management
- carrying capacity
- biodiversity
- indigenous encroaching species
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordUnlike any other biome, savannas consist of both trees and grasses in a persistent and equitable manner. This unique mixture of two different life forms attracted scientific scrutiny for decades.…Publication Date 2006
- Terminalia sericea
- Shallow root system
- savannas
- rainfall
- Etosha National Park
- grazing
- indigenous encroaching species
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordA payments for ecosystem services (PES) system came about in South Africa with the establishment of the government-funded Working for Water (WfW) programme that clears mountain catchments and…Publication Date 2008
- Working for Water
- Payment mechanisms
- ecosystem services
- water supply
- Poverty relief
- Poverty
- Alien invasive species
- fire
- plant production
- biodiversity
- hydrology
- vegetation dynamics
- Economic Aspects
- Africa