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Grazing by semi‐feral cattle and horses supports plant species richness and uniqueness in grasslands

Grazing by semi‐feral cattle and horses supports plant species richness and uniqueness in grasslands INTRODUCTIONGrazing by large herbivorous mammals is a key process shaping vegetation structure and habitat conditions for plants and other organisms (Bakker et al., 2016; Malhi et al., 2016; Galetti et al., 2018). In European conservation management, the aim is conventionally to mimic traditional practices in agriculture and livestock husbandry, for example extensive haymaking and summer grazing (Varga et al., 2016). In reality, however, actual conservation management is often strongly constrained by the opportunities compatible with modern high‐input–high‐output farming and agri‐environment support schemes (Newton et al., 2012). Either way, conservation management practice is not always rooted in ecological theory and often fails to deliver the desired outcomes for biodiversity (Maxwell et al., 2020; Kindvall et al., 2022). Attempts to apply first principles to grazing management can be comprised under the term “naturalistic grazing,” which may be characterized as landscape‐scale conservation management, which differs from other types of extensive grazing by: (1) herbivore density being resource‐regulated bottom‐up, not human‐controlled at a specific level; (2) grazing being seen as a natural process and, therefore, as a restoration target in itself; and (3) consequently, direct human intervention is reduced to a minimum (Hodder et al., 2005). Naturalistic grazing can be viewed as an implementation of the broader concept of trophic rewilding http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Applied Vegetation Science Wiley

Grazing by semi‐feral cattle and horses supports plant species richness and uniqueness in grasslands

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References (54)

Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
Copyright © 2023 International Association for Vegetation Science
ISSN
1402-2001
eISSN
1654-109X
DOI
10.1111/avsc.12718
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

INTRODUCTIONGrazing by large herbivorous mammals is a key process shaping vegetation structure and habitat conditions for plants and other organisms (Bakker et al., 2016; Malhi et al., 2016; Galetti et al., 2018). In European conservation management, the aim is conventionally to mimic traditional practices in agriculture and livestock husbandry, for example extensive haymaking and summer grazing (Varga et al., 2016). In reality, however, actual conservation management is often strongly constrained by the opportunities compatible with modern high‐input–high‐output farming and agri‐environment support schemes (Newton et al., 2012). Either way, conservation management practice is not always rooted in ecological theory and often fails to deliver the desired outcomes for biodiversity (Maxwell et al., 2020; Kindvall et al., 2022). Attempts to apply first principles to grazing management can be comprised under the term “naturalistic grazing,” which may be characterized as landscape‐scale conservation management, which differs from other types of extensive grazing by: (1) herbivore density being resource‐regulated bottom‐up, not human‐controlled at a specific level; (2) grazing being seen as a natural process and, therefore, as a restoration target in itself; and (3) consequently, direct human intervention is reduced to a minimum (Hodder et al., 2005). Naturalistic grazing can be viewed as an implementation of the broader concept of trophic rewilding

Journal

Applied Vegetation ScienceWiley

Published: Jan 1, 2023

Keywords: biomass estimation; disturbance regime; point‐intercept method; trophic rewilding; uniqueness

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