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.

Cork oak stands are a part of the agroforestry ecosystem in Portugal, characterized by a low crown cover from cork oak trees, managed towards cork production, and sometimes in combination with grazing. In recent years, European Union policies gave impetus to a large area of new cork oak plantations, which have been established mainly for cork production purposes, and consequently with higher stand density than traditional agroforestry systems.

Ecological security evaluation is an important way to identify the need for improvement in a watershed and to assess the degree of regional sustainable development. Using a driver–pressure–state–exposure–response model, a comprehensive system of ecological security indicators was developed, and it was demonstrated in a case study of the main ecological problems facing the Qinghai Lake Basin.

Spatiotemporal variation in demographic rates can have profound effects for population persistence, especially for dispersal‐limited species living in fragmented landscapes. Long‐term studies of plants in such habitats help with understanding the impacts of fragmentation on population persistence but such studies are rare. In this work, we reanalyzed demographic data from seven years of the short‐lived cactus Opuntia macrorhiza var. macrorhiza at five plots in Boulder, Colorado.

In the Flint Hills of Kansas and Oklahoma, U.S.A., grazing land is managed predominantly to promote homogeneous grassland structure. This potentially limits the diversity of habitats for grassland obligate songbirds with narrow habitat preferences during the breeding season, prompting ecologists and conservationists to call for managing rangelands for increased heterogeneity. The Flint Hills also hosts multiple species of conservation concern during winter, but avian habitat requirements are less well known during this period and seldom considered in management recommendations.

Socio-economic changes threaten nomadic pastoralism across the world, changing traditional grazing patterns. Such land-use changes will co-occur with climate change, and while both are potentially important determinants of future ecosystem functioning, interactions between them remain poorly understood. We investigated the effects of grazing by large herbivores and climate manipulation using open-top chambers (OTCs) on flower number and flowering species richness in mountain steppe of northern Mongolia.

To mitigate the adverse effects of reduced access to public forage, ranchers may require financial or other forms of "compensation." In this paper, we use results from a survey of Nevada ranchers to examine their willingness to sell grazing permits and participate in other schemes that enable them to continue ranching in spite of declining access to public forage.

Poor millet growth and yields in Niger are commonly attributed to rainfall deficits and low soil nutrient content. Land management by local farmers is done as a function of soil types, crops, and available resources. Farmer management practices in millet fields located on four different landscape positions were studied in a village in western Niger located near the 600 mm isohyet. Average distance from homestead to field was 980 m, with fields in the valley bottom much closer (average 225 m) and fields on the plateau much further (average 2300 m).

The resilience, diversity and stability of mountain ecosystems are threatened by climatic as well as land‐use changes, but the combined effects of these drivers are only poorly understood. We combine two high‐resolution sediment records from Iffigsee (2065 m a.s.l.) and Lauenensee (1382 m a.s.l.) at different elevations in the Northern Swiss Alps to provide a detailed history of vegetational changes during the period of first pastoralism (ca. 7000–5000 cal. BP, 5000–3000 BC) in order to understand ongoing and future changes in mountain ecosystems.

Protected areas are intended to conserve biodiversity by restricting human activities within their boundaries. However, such restrictions are difficult to enforce fully in many tropical parks. Improving regulatory enforcement requires an understanding of prevailing challenges to detection and sanctioning activities. Drawing from empirical field research in 15 Colombian parks, I show that current enforcement efforts may be insufficient to deter most priority threats.

Grazing is known to affect the spatial patterning of soil resources through biologically-mediated processes such as the removal of plant biomass and deposition of dung. In dense shrublands, grazing is thought to reinforce the concentration of resources around shrubs (fertile island effect) by enhancing the movement of resources from the interspace to the shrub hummocks. Shrub removal practices such as ploughing, which is commonly used to manage dense shrub patches, has unknown impacts on the distribution of soil properties.

In a previous article, Beschta et al. (2013) argue that grazing by large ungulates (both native and domestic) should be eliminated or greatly reduced on western public lands to reduce potential climate change impacts. The authors were selective in their use of the scientific literature, and their publication is more of an opinion article than a synthesis. Their conclusions do not reflect the complexities associated with herbivore grazing. Interactions of climate change and grazing will depend on the specific situation.