Improving management practices in grasslands used especially for animal grazing can enhance the capacity of soils as carbon sinks, and help countries reach their climate goals, according to this new report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Soils contribute to the achievement of the UN …
There is great uncertainty over the timing and magnitude of the termination of the African Humid Period (AHP). Spanning from the early to middle Holocene, the AHP was a period of enhanced moisture over most of northern and eastern Africa. However, beginning 8000 years ago the moisture balance shifted due …
This working paper presents a study on the combined effect of land-use land-cover (LULC) changes and the effects of climate variability for a specific study area in Kenya. The study was run between the years 1995 and 2010. LULC changes revealed competing land uses, which increased base and rock cover. …
This article aims to examine the use pattern and potentiality of livestock farming in the Uttarakhand Himalaya, India. We collected and compared data on livestock population and production in 13 districts of Uttarakhand (2001–14) and noted that number of milching livestock, improved hen and milk production increased during the period. …
The Eastern Himalayas are considered to be a region of global importance for biodiversity; the result of the synergistic interactions of the complex mountain terrain, extreme elevation gradients, overlaps of several biogeographic barriers, and regional monsoonal precipitation. The distribution of the region’s biodiversity has been mapped as ecoregions directed along …
ROME (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The areas surrounding the Sahara desert which decades ago were covered with forests, crops and grasslands, can be restored - a significant chunk of them by 2030 - agriculture experts said after viewing the results of a detailed survey of the region. For the first …
The Asian Development Bank and the National Development and Reform Commission of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) undertook a study on eco-compensation regulations development in the country, on which this publication is based. The study examined the PRC’s theory, practice, and legislation governing eco-compensation in selected ecological areas to …
Grasslands are critical global ecosystems, but pollution from agricultural fertilizers and nitrogen-laden smog threatens to dump too many nutrients onto the grasses. Ecologists applied various fertilizers to grassland plots at 45 sites on five continents annually and measured biodiversity and plant growth. Excess nutrients decreased biodiversity more and more over …
Global wildlife could plunge to a 67 per cent level of decline in just the fifty-year period ending this decade as a result of human activities, according to WWF’s Living Planet Report 2016. The report shows how people are overpowering the planet for the first time in Earth’s history and …
Presently, the lack of data on soil organic carbon (SOC) in relation to land-use types and biophysical characteristics prevents reliable estimates of carbon stocks in montane landscapes of mainland SE Asia. Our study, conducted in a 10,000-hectare landscape in Xishuangbanna, SW China, aimed at assessing the spatial variability in SOC …
The study suggests climate change is projected to occur "thousands of times faster" than grass species can adapt A study has highlighted the risk posed by projected climate change on the world's ability to grow enough food. A US team of researchers found that forecasted shifts in climate by 2070 …
The interest in forest productivity estimation has increased in the last years as it is very important for forest management and the estimation of carbon stock, wood and non-wood products, etc. However, there are no estimates of productivity and stored volume and carbon of different forest cover types throughout the …
Greenhouse gas (GHG) emission measurements from livestock excreta in Africa are limited. We measured CH4 and N2O emissions from excreta of six Boran (Bos indicus) and six Friesian (Bos taurus) steers near Nairobi, Kenya. The steers were fed one of three diets (T1 [chaffed wheat straw], T2 [T1 + Calliandra …
According to a new research loss of megaherbivores such as elephants and hippos could allow woody plants, non-grassy herbs and flowering plants to encroach the grasslands in African national parks. The study used isotopes in hippopotamus teeth to find a shift in the diet of hippos over the course of …
Union environment ministry is all set to launch the Long-Term Ecological Observatories (LTEO) to bridge the gap of insufficient data on impact of climate change on different regions in the country. “The ecosystems in the country is diverse and there is not enough data available on what impact climate change …
According to a new research loss of megaherbivores such as elephants and hippos could allow woody plants, non-grassy herbs and flowering plants to encroach the grasslands in African national parks. The study used isotopes in hippopotamus teeth to find a shift in the diet of hippos over the course of …
Megaherbivores (>1000 kg) are critical for ecosystem health and function, but face population collapse and extinction globally. The future of these megaherbivore-impoverished ecosystems is difficult to predict, though many studies have demonstrated increasing representation of C3 woody plants. These studies rely on direct observational data, however, and tools for assessing …
Analysis of multi-year nutrient enrichment experiments carried out on 45 global grassland sites show that an addition of an increasing number of nutrients leads to a reduction in plant species diversity, and competition for multiple below-ground resources promotes plant species diversity.
The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) is the largest agricultural land-retirement program in the United States, providing many environmental benefits, including wildlife habitat and improved air, water, and soil quality. Since 2007, however, CRP area has declined by over 25% nationally with much of this land returning to agriculture. Despite this …
A new study finds that, contrary to popular belief, grassy biomes such as grasslands and savannas are species-rich ecosystems every bit as biodiverse as rainforests — yet little attention is being paid to the fact that they’re being destroyed at an even quicker pace. The notion that grassy biomes arise …
In arid and semi-arid regions, grassland degradation has become a major environmental and economic problem, but little information is available on the response of grassland productivity to both climate change and grazing intensity. By developing a grazing module in a process-based ecosystem model, the dynamic land ecosystem model (DLEM), we …
