Artemisia ordosica Krasch. is a semishrub native to the Ordos Plateau of Inner Mongolia, northern China, and forms a unique and dominant vegetation type in the sandland of the region. To determine the variation of productivity in A. ordosica rangeland, we investigated net primary production (NPP), fine root turnover, soil microbial C (Cmic), and soil organic carbon density (SOCd) on sand dunes differing in mobility (i.e., fixed, semifixed, and shifting sand dunes) in Mu Us sandland.

Livestock-water productivity (LWP) refers to a set of innovations that could contribute towards reducing the amount of water needed per unit of output generated. But what does it take to get these ideas adopted by livestock keepers in crop-livestock systems? In this paper, we treat LWP as an innovation, and consider in what ways it may be introduced and/or developed among the crop-livestock agricultural systems by drawing on successful examples of change.

Grasses, which dominate many terrestrial ecosystems, sustain high densities of grazing mammals, so are of great economic and ecological importance. Traditionally, grasses are thought to be adapted to tolerate grazing rather than defend against it; however, silica deposited in the leaves of grasses has recently been shown to act as a feeding deterrent to invertebrate herbivores and small mammals. This study assesses whether silica is effective as a feeding deterrent to larger mammalian herbivores.

Private landowners are often de facto stewards of biodiversity and ecosystem services. In California's Sierra Nevada foothills, ranchers frequently present the only defense against biological invasions in private rangelands. Although ranchers' land management goals (e.g., the desire to control invasive species) can be consistent with ecosystem protection, practical constraints often limit their success. Considerable research on the invasive weed, yellow starthistle (Centaurea solstitialis L.), has produced numerous control strategies.

Improper cropping and overgrazing have led to land degradation in semi-arid regions, resulting in desertification. During desertification, vegetation changes have been widely observed, and are likely controlled to some extent by soil water. The purpose of this study was to investigate changes in soil physical properties, organic C, and vegetation induced by land-use changes, with special reference to the dynamics of available soil water.

The complex interactions between human activity and natural processes determine non-linear dynamics in ecosystems that can difficult their management. Human settlements in arid lands contribute to the modification of disturbance regimes, including the introduction of new disturbances and the elimination of others. In consequence, they can alter the functional mechanisms that allow systems to overcome limiting factors, leading to desertification.

Conservation auctions are a type of market-based instrument (MBI) that can achieve a more cost-efficient allocation of public funds than approaches such as devolved grants. In this paper, the conduct of a multiple round conservation auction to improve biodiversity management in a rangelands area is outlined. The auction was designed to develop a wildlife corridor across the southern Desert Uplands bioregion in Queensland and to improve management of rangelands areas. The conservation auction incorporated two important new design features.

To document trends in land use and herbaceous production, 71 field sites sampled among cropped fields, fallow fields and rangelands in the Fakara region (Niger) were monitored from 1994 to 2006. The overall trend in land use confirmed the historical increase of the cropped areas since mid 20th century, at an annual rate of 2% from 1994 to 2006. This trend is the result of changes in the relative extent of fields permanently cropped and fields under shifting cultivation, and for the latter, the relative proportion of short (3 years) and long (10 years) duration fallows.

1. The distribution and abundance of invasive species can be driven by both environmental variables and land management decisions. However, understanding these relationships can be complicated by interactions between management actions and environmental variability, and differences in scale among these variables. The resulting 'context-dependence' of management actions may be well-appreciated by ecologists and land managers, but can frustrate attempts to apply general management principles. 2.

Most of the Mediterranean woodlands in Spain, Portugal, and California are managed as agrosilvopastoral enterprises, producing some combination of livestock, wood, cork products, and crops, as well as wildlife habitat and diverse environmental services. Private amenity benefits to landowners have been suggested as an explanation for high land prices and the persistence of such rangeland enterprises despite apparently marginal cash returns.

In 2007, an epizootic of equine influenza (EI) occurred in Australia, involving parts of the states of Queensland and New South Wales. Following an extensive control program, the disease was eradicated within 4 months, after infecting more than 75 000 horses on over 10 000 properties. In Queensland, examination of land use patterns revealed that the majority of infected premises (89.5%) were located in one of three land use classes viz. rural residential, residential-unspecified or grazing natural vegetation.

In this study, we asked the Ariaal herders of northern Kenya to answer “why, what and how” they classified landscape, and assessed and monitored the biodiversity of 10 km2 of grazing land. To answer the “why question” the herders classified grazing resources into 39 landscape patches grouped into six landscape types and classified soil as ‘warm’, ‘intermediate’ or ‘cold’ for the purpose of land use. For the “what question” the herders used soil conditions and vegetation characteristics to assess biodiversity. Plant species were described as ‘increasers’, ‘decreasers’ or ‘stable’.