Large scale experimental effects of three levels of sheep densities on an alpine ecosystem

Niche construction mediates climate effects on recovery of tundra heathlands after extreme event

Climate change is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of extreme events in northern ecosystems. The outcome of these events across the landscape, might be mediated by species effects, such as niche construction, with likely consequences on vegetation resilience. To test this hypothesis, we simulated an extreme event by removing aboveground vegetation in tundra heathlands dominated by the allelopathic dwarf shrub Empetrum nigrum, a strong niche constructor. We tested the hypothesis under different climate regimes along a 200-km long gradient from oceanic to continental climate in Northern Norway. We studied the vegetation recovery process over ten years along the climatic gradient. The recovery of E. nigrum and subordinate species was low and flattened out after five years at all locations along the climatic gradient, causing low vegetation cover at the end of the study in extreme event plots. Natural seed recruitment was low at all sites, however, the addition of seeds from faster growing species did not promote vegetation recovery. A soil bioassay from 8 years after the vegetation was removed, suggested the allelopathic effect of E. nigrum was still present in the soil environment. Our results provide evidence of how a common niche constructor species can dramatically affect ecosystem recovery along a climatic gradient after extreme events in habitats where it is dominant. By its extremely slow regrowth and it preventing establishment of faster growing species, this study increases our knowledge on the possible outcomes when extreme events harm niche constructors in the tundra.

Short-term responses to sheep grazing in a Patagonian steppe

Grazing modifies ecosystem function through direct effects on plants, but also through indirect effects mediated by floristic changes induced by grazing. Although both types of effects occur in the long term, only the direct effects are evident in the short term. We evaluated the short-term direct effects of sheep (Ovis aries) grazing on a Patagonian steppe during one growing season. We measured plant aerial cover in permanent transects located at increasing distances from a watering point in three paddocks with different stocking rates through the growing season. We also measured frequency of defoliation for vegetative and reproductive phases of different plant species located along these transects. Sheep grazing directly (a) reduced aerial cover and/or increased frequency of defoliation of certain preferred grasses and perennial forbs, (b) did not increase the aerial cover of any life form, but only the proportion of bare soil, (c) did not change the litter aerial cover, and (d) defoliated the flowers of even the least preferred shrub. Result a) was coincident with previous plant aerial cover long-term studies; but results (b) and (c) were contrary to long-term studies, probably because they resulted from indirect rather than direct grazing effects. Result (d) was not detected by long-term studies, probably because flower defoliation through grazing is undetectable when measuring shrub plant aerial cover. Our study showed that grazing has short-term direct effects mainly on the most preferred species. This could be useful for rangeland management and conservation of Patagonian steppes because short-term effects may be more easily reversible than long-term ones, and may provide early warning of rangeland condition deterioration.

Plant community recovery from intense deer grazing depends on reduction of graminoids and the time after exclosure installation in a semi-natural grassland

Exclosures that exclude large herbivores are effective tools for the protection and restoration of grazed plant communities. However, previous studies have shown that the installation of an exclosure does not ensure plant community recovery. Our study aimed to determine the effects of the domination of unpalatable plants and the timing of exclosure installation on the plant community recovery process in montane grassland overgrazed by sika deer (Cervus nippon) in Japan. In this study we compared plant species composition and their cover with inside and outside exclosures installed at different times. Furthermore, we also compared them with those in 1981, when density of sika deer was very low. We used quadrats inside and outside fenced areas established in 2010 and 2011 to record both the cover and the height of species in each quadrat between 2011 and 2015. Plant cover, with the exception of graminoid species, increased in later years in all treatments. Non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) plots showed significantly differentiated treatment trends. The species composition within the 2010 fenced area gradually shifted to greater similarity with the species composition reported in 1981. The plant community in the 2011 fenced area was slower to recover. Compositions of plant communities outside the fenced areas hardly changed from 2011 to 2015. Chao’s dissimilarity index decreased over time between the plant community surveyed between 2011 and 2015 and the past plant community in 1981 within the exclosures, and was higher in the 2011 fenced area than in the 2010 fenced area. In conclusion, we show that the reduction of graminoids and the time after exclosure installation were important for plant community recovery from deer grazing damage. A delay in exclosure installation of one year could result in a delay in plant community recovery of more than one year.

Herbivore grazing-or trampling? Trampling effects by a large ungulate in cold high-latitude ecosystems

Mammalian herbivores have important top-down effects on ecological processes and landscapes by generating vegetation changes through grazing and trampling. For free-ranging herbivores on large landscapes, trampling is an important ecological factor. However, whereas grazing is widely studied, low-intensity trampling is rarely studied and quantified. The cold-adapted northern tundra reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) is a wide-ranging keystone herbivore in large open alpine and Arctic ecosystems. Reindeer may largely subsist on different species of slow-growing ground lichens, particularly in winter. Lichen grows in dry, snow-poor habitats with frost. Their varying elasticity makes them suitable for studying trampling. In replicated factorial experiments, high-resolution 3D laser scanning was used to quantify lichen volume loss from trampling by a reindeer hoof. Losses were substantial, that is, about 0.3 dm³ per imprint in dry thick lichen, but depended on type of lichen mat and humidity. Immediate trampling volume loss was about twice as high in dry, compared to humid thin (2-3 cm), lichen mats and about three times as high in dry vs. humid thick (6-8 cm) lichen mats, There was no significant difference in volume loss between 100% and 50% wetted lichen. Regained volume with time was insignificant for dry lichen, whereas 50% humid lichen regained substantial volumes, and 100% humid lichen regained almost all lost volume, and mostly within 10-20 min. Reindeer trampling may have from near none to devastating effects on exposed lichen forage. During a normal week of foraging, daily moving 5 km across dry 6- to 8-cm-thick continuous lichen mats, one adult reindeer may trample a lichen volume corresponding to about a year's supply of lichen. However, the lichen humidity appears to be an important factor for trampling loss, in addition to the extent of reindeer movement.

Sheep grazing in the North Atlantic region: A long-term perspective on environmental sustainability

Sheep grazing is an important part of agriculture in the North Atlantic region, defined here as the Faroe Islands, Greenland, Iceland, Norway and Scotland. This process has played a key role in shaping the landscape and biodiversity of the region, sometimes with major environmental consequences, and has also been instrumental in the development of its rural economy and culture. In this review, we present results of the first interdisciplinary study taking a long-term perspective on sheep management, resource economy and the ecological impacts of sheep grazing, showing that sustainability boundaries are most likely to be exceeded in fragile environments where financial support is linked to the number of sheep produced. The sustainability of sheep grazing can be enhanced by a management regime that promotes grazing densities appropriate to the site and supported by area-based subsidy systems, thus minimizing environmental degradation, encouraging biodiversity and preserving the integrity of ecosystem processes.

The Role of Individual Traits and Environmental Factors for Diet Composition of Sheep

Large herbivore consumption of forage is known to affect vegetation composition and thereby ecosystem functions. It is thus important to understand how diet composition arises as a mixture of individual variation in preferences and environmental drivers of availability, but few studies have quantified both. Based on 10 years of data on diet composition by aid of microhistological analysis for sheep kept at high and low population density, we analysed how both individual traits (sex, age, body mass, litter size) linked to preference and environmental variation (density, climate proxies) linked to forage availability affected proportional intake of herbs (high quality/low availability) and Avenella flexuosa (lower quality/high availability). Environmental factors affecting current forage availability such as population density and seasonal and annual variation in diet had the most marked impact on diet composition. Previous environment of sheep (switch between high and low population density) had no impact on diet, suggesting a comparably minor role of learning for density dependent diet selection. For individual traits, only the difference between lambs and ewes affected proportion of A. flexuosa, while body mass better predicted proportion of herbs in diet. Neither sex, body mass, litter size, ewe age nor mass of ewe affected diet composition of lambs, and there was no effect of age, body mass or litter size on diet composition of ewes. Our study highlights that diet composition arises from a combination of preferences being predicted by lamb and ewes’ age and/or body mass differences, and the immediate environment in terms of population density and proxies for vegetation development.

Greenlandic sheep farming controlled by vegetation response today and at the end of the 21st century

The spatial heterogeneity of vegetation greenness and potential aboveground biomass production for sheep farming has been assessed for Southwest Greenland. A Multi-Criteria Evaluation (MCE) model was set up to identify biophysical constraints on the present spatial distribution of farms and fields based on all existing sheep farms in a detailed study area. Time-integrated NDVI (TI-NDVI) from MODIS and observed temperatures (2000-2012) have been combined with a downscaled regional climate model (HIRHAM5) in order to establish a spatio-temporal model for future TI-NDVI, thus forecasting the dry biomass production available for sheep farming in steps of decades for the next 85 years. The model has been validated against observed biomass production and the present distribution of fields. Future biomass production is used to discuss the expansion of current farms and to identify new suitable areas for sheep farming. Interestingly, new suitable areas are located where sheep farms were situated during the Norse era more than 1000 years ago; areas which have been abandoned for the past 500 years. The study highlights the potential of establishing new areas for sheep farming in Arctic Greenland, where current and future climate changes are markedly amplified compared to global trends. However, for the study area the MCE model clearly indicates that the potential of expansion relies on contemporary infrastructural development.

Does the aboveground herbivore assemblage influence soil bacterial community composition and richness in subalpine grasslands?

Grassland ecosystems support large communities of aboveground herbivores that are known to directly and indirectly affect belowground properties such as the microbial community composition, richness, or biomass. Even though multiple species of functionally different herbivores coexist in grassland ecosystems, most studies have only considered the impact of a single group, i.e., large ungulates (mostly domestic livestock) on microbial communities. Thus, we investigated how the exclusion of four groups of functionally different herbivores affects bacterial community composition, richness, and biomass in two vegetation types with different grazing histories. We progressively excluded large, medium, and small mammals as well as invertebrate herbivores using exclosures at 18 subalpine grassland sites (9 per vegetation type). We assessed the bacterial community composition using terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) at each site and exclosure type during three consecutive growing seasons (2009-2011) for rhizosphere and mineral soil separately. In addition, we determined microbial biomass carbon (MBC), root biomass, plant carbon:nitrogen ratio, soil temperature, and soil moisture. Even though several of these variables were affected by herbivore exclusion and vegetation type, against our expectations, bacterial community composition, richness, or MBC were not. Yet, bacterial communities strongly differed between the three growing seasons as well as to some extent between our study sites. Thus, our study indicates that the spatiotemporal variability in soil microclimate has much stronger effects on the soil bacterial communities than the grazing regime or the composition of the vegetation in this high-elevation ecosystem.

Experimental evidence for herbivore limitation of the treeline

The treeline ecotone divides forest from open alpine or arctic vegetation states. Treelines are generally perceived to be temperature limited. The role of herbivores in limiting the treeline is more controversial, as experimental evidence from relevant large scales is lacking. Here we quantify the impact of different experimentally controlled herbivore densities on the recruitment and survival of birch Betula pubescens tortuosa along an altitudinal gradient in the mountains of southern Norway. After eight years of summer grazing in large-scale enclosures at densities of 0, 25, and 80 sheep/km2, birch recruited within the whole altitudinal range of ungrazed enclosures, but recruitment was rarer in enclosures with low-density sheep and was largely limited to within the treeline in enclosures with high-density sheep. In contrast, the distribution of saplings (birch older than the experiment) did not differ between grazing treatments, suggesting that grazing sheep primarily limit the establishment of new tree recruits rather than decrease the survival of existing individuals. This study provides direct experimental evidence that herbivores can limit the treeline below its potential at the landscape scale and even at low herbivore densities in this climatic zone. Land use changes should thus be considered in addition to climatic changes as potential drivers of ecotone shifts.

Grazing responses in herbs in relation to herbivore selectivity and plant traits in an alpine ecosystem

Herbivores shape plant communities through selective foraging. However, both herbivore selectivity and the plant's ability to tolerate or resist herbivory may depend on the density of herbivores. In an alpine ecosystem with a long history of grazing, plants are expected to respond to both enhanced and reduced grazing pressures, and the interaction between plant traits and changes in species abundance are expected to differ between the two types of alteration of grazing regime. To understand the mechanisms behind species response, we investigated the relationship between sheep selectivity (measured in situ), plant traits and experimentally derived measures of change in species abundance as a response to the enhancement (from low to high density) or cessation (from low to zero density) of sheep grazing pressure over a six-year time period for 22 abundant herb species in an alpine habitat in south Norway. Sheep selected large, late-flowering herbs with a low leaf C/N ratio. Species that increased in abundance in response to enhanced grazing pressure were generally small and had high root/shoot ratios, thus exhibiting traits that reflect both resistance (through avoidance) and tolerance (through regrowth capacity) strategies. The abundance of selected species remained stable during the study period, and also under the enhanced grazing pressure treatment. There was, however, a tendency for selected species to respond positively to cessation of grazing, although overall responses to cessation of grazing were much less pronounced than responses to enhanced grazing. Avoidance through short stature (probably associated with increased light availability through the removal of tall competitors) as well as a certain amount of regrowth capacity appear to be the main mechanisms behind a positive response to enhanced grazing pressure in this study. The plant trait perspective clearly improves our insight into the mechanisms behind observed changes in species abundance when the disturbance regime is altered.