Rangeland Ecology & Management
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- Library Collection RecordChanging climate adds a very significant dimension to the complex problem of ensuring that agriculture worldwide can feed the burgeoning human population. Ensuring food security must reduce…Publication Date 2009
- climate change
- plant production
- 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 RecordSummary 10.1002/9780470292136.ch4.abs This chapter contains sections titled: * Objectives for This Chapter * Introduction * Factors Influencing the Agricultural Use of Animals * Animal Distribution…Publication Date 2008
- food production
- physiological adaptation
- buffalo
- livestock
- veterinary service
- agriculture
- management
- sustainability
- animal 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 RecordSummary The growth of agricultural production worldwide has led to an increasing role of agro-ecosystems within the global carbon cycle. Arable land in the world covers about one-tenth of the 134…Publication Date 2001
- plant production
- carbon dioxide
- animal nutrition
- animal production
- southern Africa
- Library Collection RecordLivestock have played a pivotal and positive role in human development. Yet this has come at a heavy cost to the biological diversity of the world's rangelands and forests. Livestock grazing is…Publication Date 2001
- rangelands
- ecology
- livestock
- southern Africa
- Library Collection RecordSummary The savanna biome is diverse, including formations ranging from almost treeless grasslands to more or less closed-canopy woodlands with considerable variation in plant composition, biomass,…Publication Date 2001
- savanna
- animal production
- plant production
- plant community ecology
- land use
- degradation
- agriculture
- ecology
- 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 world population has increased from 2–10 million at the dawn of settled agriculture about 10–12 millennium ago to 6.5 billion in 2006, and may stabilize at 10–12 billion by 2100. Most of…Publication Date 2007
- socio-economic aspects
- agriculture
- pastoralism
- soils
- management
- plant production
- animal production
- southern Africa
- Library Collection RecordPublished studies relating erosion and productivity have been generally based on information derived from expert opinion on the extent and severity of soil erosion and on limited data on its impact…Publication Date 2003
- soil erosion
- plant production
- management
- southern Africa
- Library Collection RecordThe contribution deals with the contextual design of spatial data for regional development and land management purposes. Further development of information technologies, image processing techniques…Publication Date 2003
- management
- remote sensing
- GIS
- modelling
- southern Africa
- Library Collection RecordThe use of fire in the management of grassland is a common rangeland practice in South Africa. This portends ecological implication for the sustainability of the savannah rangelands as a system. A…Publication Date 2008
- fire ecology
- management
- savanna
- grasslands
- rangelands
- Soil Condition
- plant production
- 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 RecordTransformation of indigenous vegetation for production purposes impacts negatively on biodiversity but does this necessarily equate with a decrease in phytomass accumulation, which may influence…Publication Date 2008
- grasslands
- plant production
- carbon sequestration
- land use
- management
- conservation
- agriculture
- pasture management
- biodiversity
- 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 RecordUsing new tools (boosted regression trees) in predictive biogeography, with extensive spatial 23 distribution data for >19 000 species, we developed predictive models for South African plant…Publication Date 2006
- modelling
- species richness
- ecosystem ecology
- Alien invasive species
- grasslands
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordThe relationship between above and belowground species composition has been researched in forests, grasslands, and wetlands to understand what mechanisms control community composition. I thoroughly…Publication Date 2007
- grasslands
- plant community ecology
- plant production
- plant autecology
- species richness
- seed banks
- management
- Africa
- Library Collection Record[1] Land use/cover change has been recognized as a key component in global change. Various land cover data sets, including historically reconstructed, recently observed, and future projected, have…Publication Date 2007
- land use
- climate change
- management
- classification
- data analysis
- remote sensing
- modelling
- rainfall
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordFlood depth has been frequently used to explain the distribution of plant species in seasonally flooded grasslands, but its relation with vegetation production has remained ambiguous. The…Publication Date 2007
- grasslands
- plant production
- hydrology
- plant autecology
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordHistorically, agriculturally induced CO2 release from soils has contributed to rising levels in the atmosphere. However, by using appropriate management, soils can be turned into carbon sinks. Many…Publication Date 2007
- carbon sequestration
- drylands
- modelling
- soil carbon
- farming systems
- tropics
- global warming
- carbon dioxide
- management
- subsistence agriculture
- socio-economic aspects
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordResidues of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) may be important for agroecosystem functioning due to their ability to promote soil aggregation, especially in coarse textured soils with little biomass…Publication Date 2007
- soil organic matter
- Glomalin
- arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi
- Biomarker
- Arable land use
- savanna
- soils
- ecosystem ecology
- plant production
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordAn 18-year time series of monthly NOAA-AVHRR Pathfinder Land burned area was analyzed for the region of tropical Africa, from July 1981 to June 1999. The transition period between NOAA-11 and NOAA-14…Publication Date 2007
- Global burned area
- Southern Oscillation Index
- NOAA-AVHRR Pathfinder Land
- Forecast
- SARIMA
- fire ecology
- NOAA
- modelling
- 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 RecordEarly warning systems (EWS) tend to focus on the identification of slow onset disasters such famine and epidemic disease. Since hazardous environmental conditions often precede disastrous outcomes by…Publication Date 2006
- Early warning
- Africa
- food security
- NDVI
- precipitation
- rainfall
- Malaria
- Rift valley fever
- Pastoral livelihoods
- modelling
- drought
- management
- system ecology
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordThis paper presents an environmental exposure assessment model for estimating chronic intake of vanadium (a transition metal) by cattle farmed extensively in areas contaminated by vanadium pollutants…Publication Date 2006
- Environmental epidemiology
- Vanadium
- pollution
- cattle
- model
- Transition metals and exposure assessment
- modelling
- 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 RecordEvidence suggests that C4 grasses, adapted to conditions of low CO2, high temperatures, and water-stressed environments, expanded relatively quickly, and in several geographically distinct regions,…Publication Date 2007
- Oligocene
- Climate modelling
- C4 grasses
- Miocene
- C3 grasses
- palaeobotany
- modelling
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordPlant invasions are a serious threat to natural and semi-natural ecosystems worldwide. Most management-orientated research on invasions focuses on invaders that are already widespread and often have…Publication Date 2007
- biological invasions
- invasive alien plants
- Emerging plant invaders
- Bioclimatic modelling
- Potential distribution
- Alien invasive species
- biodiversity
- landscape ecology
- management
- modelling
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordSemi-arid areas are often considered to be environmentally and economically marginal, a situation which has been exacerbated by economic change, shifts in agricultural production and land use, and…Publication Date 2008
- Dry land degradation
- Economic decline
- Livestock trends
- population change
- Small towns
- rangelands
- Economic Aspects
- livestock
- agriculture
- socio-economic aspects
- politics
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordDespite the ubiquity of sub-tropical savannas throughout the earth, limitations of savanna productivity are understudied relative to other terrestrial systems. The limitations of savanna productivity…Publication Date 2008
- grass
- nitrogen
- phosphorus
- savanna
- rainfall
- soil nutrients
- plant production
- plant autecology
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordLivestock grazing may or may not be an exogenous disturbance facilitating the spread of exotic grasses, perhaps depending on the historical importance of native ungulates in a particular grassland.…Publication Date 2007
- Boer Lovegrass
- disturbance
- invasion
- Lehmann lovegrass
- livestock
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordPastoral production around artificial watering points in semi-arid environments affects the density and composition of plant communities. In the Kalahari desert of southwestern Africa, bush…Publication Date 2007
- Rural livelihoods
- watering points
- land degradation
- Fodder trees
- Indigenous ecological knowledge
- Herero
- pastoralism
- traditional knowledge
- piosphere
- degradation
- cattle
- household income studies
- participatory rural appraisal
- livestock
- subsistence agriculture
- socio-economic aspects
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordThe aim of this study was to determine the effect of drought on grazing patterns of livestock in a communal rangeland in Namaqualand. Water points were the foci of almost all grazing routes even…Publication Date 2007
- pastoralism
- drought
- Livestock farming
- Livestock activity patterns
- communal rangeland
- livestock
- communal farming
- rangeland condition
- 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 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 RecordThis paper demonstrates the potential of hyperspectral remote sensing to predict the chemical composition (i.e., nitrogen, phosphorous, calcium, potassium, sodium, and magnesium) of three tree…Publication Date 2007
- hyperspectral
- chemical composition
- reflectance
- Derivative
- Continuum removal
- modelling
- remote sensing
- surface vegetation
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordWe evaluate the possible effects of climate change on vegetation in Central and West Africa. We chose two climate scenarios from the IPCC Third Assessment Report, ECHAM3 with scenario B2 and HADCM3…Publication Date 2008
- vegetation model
- climate change
- Central and West Africa
- modelling
- global warming
- 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 RecordTraditional vegetative techniques to control gully development rely mainly on the effects of above ground biomass, whereas little attention has been given to the role of below ground biomass. Yet, in…Publication Date 2006
- roots
- grass
- Concentrated flow erosion
- Rill
- Gully
- Erodibility
- soil erosion
- rangelands
- hydrology
- modelling
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordClimate change factors interact to modify plant growth and development. The objective of this study was to evaluate the response to temperature of big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii Vitman)…Publication Date 2007
- big bluestem
- biomass
- development
- Growth Rates
- Partitioning
- Seed number
- climate change
- temperature
- plant autecology
- plant production
- carbon dioxide
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordPrecision agriculture (PA) is an innovative, int+O101egrated and internationally standardized approach aiming to increase the efficiency of resource use and to reduce the uncertainty of decisions…Publication Date 2008
- precision agriculture
- grassland
- Perspectives
- Constraints
- interdisciplinary research
- grasslands
- remote sensing
- plant production
- Economic Aspects
- agriculture
- decision support systems
- management
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordThis paper describes a procedure for evaluating the desertification risk in threatened areas. The procedure is based on an eight-equation dynamic model of a generic human-resource system that can be…Publication Date 2008
- Desertification risk
- System Dynamics
- Alternative long-term states
- desertification
- modelling
- management
- grasslands
- sustainability
- land use
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordThis paper reports on the development and testing of a simulation model to assess the impacts of two seed-feeding biological control agents on the dispersal of an invasive perennial tree, Hakea…Publication Date 2008
- Hakea sericea
- South Africa
- biological control
- population dynamics
- seed dispersal
- Weibull distribution
- fire frequency
- seed banks
- Alien invasive species
- fire
- modelling
- 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 arid and semi-arid savannas, species diversity is strongly influenced by structural diversity, which in these systems is characteristically formed by woody vegetation. Shrub encroachment,…Publication Date 2007
- Yellow mongoose
- rangelands
- Individual-based model
- shrub encroachment
- Spatial explicit
- structural diversity
- ecosystem ecology
- savanna
- biodiversity
- mammals
- indigenous encroaching species
- modelling
- 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 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
- Library Collection RecordClassic rangeland theory advocates stocking rangelands at relatively low and constant levels. This theory has been labelled inappropriate for savanna rangelands, because savannas are strongly…Publication Date 2007
- Bush encroachment
- Disequilibrium theory
- Opportunistic strategies
- Grass-tree interactions
- fire
- livestock production
- savanna
- rangelands
- stocking rates
- management
- modelling
- sustainability
- animal production
- Africa