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155 results for “large herbivores”
Large mammalian herbivores contribute to conspecific negative density dependence in a temperate forest
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Data from: Reintroducing extirpated herbivores could partially reverse the late Quaternary decline of large and grazing species
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Data from: On fitness and partial migration in a large herbivore – migratory moose have higher reproductive performance than residents
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Data from: Does primary productivity modulate the indirect effects of large herbivores? A global meta-analysis
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Data from: Migratory plasticity is not ubiquitous among large herbivores
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Data from: Extreme precipitation variability, forage quality and large herbivore diet selection in arid environments
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Data from: Combining familiarity and landscape features helps break down the barriers between movements and home ranges in a non-territorial large herbivore
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Large herbivores facilitate a dominant grassland plant via multiple indirect effects
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A facilitation between large herbivores and ants accelerates litter decomposition by modifying soil micro-environmental conditions
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Data from: Impacts of grazing by different large herbivores in grassland depend on plant species diversity
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Risky movements? Natal dispersal does not decrease survival of a large herbivore
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Data from: Numbers and population trends of large herbivores in Mole National Park, Ghana
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Data for "An application of upscaled optimal foraging theory using hidden Markov modelling: year-round behavioural variation in a large arctic herbivore"
<p>Data for the article “An application of upscaled optimal foraging theory using hidden Markov modelling: year-round behavioural variation in a large arctic herbivore”</p> <p>By LT Beumer, J Pohle, NMS Schmidt, M Chimienti, JP Desforges, LH Hansen, R Langrock, SH Pedersen, M Stelvig, FM van Beest</p> <p> </p> <p>The data set includes three files: A readme file describing the data files and two data files accompanying the above publication.</p> <p>Combined, the two data files represent the dataset collected by GPS collars fitted on 19 female muskoxen in northeast Greenland (28 muskox-years with 153-1062 observation days/animal) and associated extracted covariates, divided into a summer and winter season dataset as modelled in the article. Data here are given as included in the models (for a description of cleaning procedures, see article). All continuous, non-cyclical covariates were standardised to have zero mean and unit standard deviation to improve numerical stability of parameter estimation. This is indicated by “_scaled” in the column name.</p> <p>For further queries please contact nms@bios.au.dk</p>
Large herbivores maintain a two-phase herbaceous vegetation mosaic in a semi-arid savanna
<ol> <li>Many arid and semi-arid rangelands exhibit distinct spatial patterning of vegetated and bare-soil-dominated patches. The latter potentially represent a grazing-induced, degraded ecosystem state, but could also arise via mechanisms related to feedbacks between vegetation cover and soil moisture availability that are unrelated to grazing. The degree to which grazing contributes to the formation or maintenance of degraded patches has been widely discussed and modelled, but empirical studies of the role of grazing in their formation, persistence, and reversibility are limited. </li> <li>We report on a long-term (17 yr) grazing removal experiment in a semi-arid savanna where vegetated patches composed of perennial grasses were interspersed within large (>10 m<sup>2</sup>) patches of bare soil. </li> <li>Short term (3 yr) grazing removal did not allow bare patches to become revegetated, whereas following long-term (17 yr) grazing removal, bare soil patches were revegetated by a combination of stoloniferous grasses and tufted bunchgrasses. In the presence of grazers, stoloniferous grasses partially recolonized bare patches, but this did not lead to full recovery or to the establishment of tufted bunchgrasses. </li> <li>These results show that grazers alter both the balance between bare and vegetated patches, as well as the types of grasses dominating both patch types in this semiarid savanna. </li> <li>Synthesis: Large herbivores fundamentally shaped the composition and spatial pattern of the herbaceous layer by maintaining a two-phase herbaceous mosaic. However, bare patches within this mosaic can recover given herbivore removal over sufficiently long time scales, and hence do not represent a permanently degraded ecosystem state. </li> </ol>
Data from: Accelerating across the landscape: the energetic costs of natal dispersal in a large herbivore
1. Dispersal is a key mechanism enabling species to adjust their geographic range to rapid global change. However, dispersal is costly and environmental modifications are likely to modify the cost-benefit balance of individual dispersal decisions, for example, by decreasing functional connectivity. 2. Dispersal costs occur during departure, transience and settlement, and are levied in terms of energy, risk, time and lost opportunity, potentially influencing individual fitness. However, to the best of our knowledge, no study has yet quantified the energetic costs of dispersal across the dispersal period by comparing dispersing and philopatric individuals in the wild.3. Here, we employed animal-born bio-loggers on a relatively large sample (N = 105) of juvenile roe deer to estimate energy expenditure indexed using the vector of dynamic body acceleration (VeDBA) and mobility (distance travelled) in an intensively monitored population in the south west of France. We predicted that energy expenditure would be higher in dispersers compared to philopatric individuals. We expected costs to be i/ particularly high during transience, ii/ especially high in the more fragmented areas of the landscape, and iii/ concentrated during the night to avoid disturbance caused by human activity. 4. There were no differences in energy expenditure between dispersers and philopatric individuals during the pre-dispersal phase. However, dispersers expended around 22% more energy and travelled around 63% further per day than philopatric individuals during transience. Differences in energy expenditure were much less pronounced during the settlement phase. The costs of transience were almost uniquely confined to the dawn period, when dispersers spent 23% more energy and travelled 112% further than philopatric individuals. Finally, the energetic costs of transience per unit time and the total distance travelled to locate a suitable settlement range were higher in areas of high road density. 5. Our results provide strong support for the hypothesis that natal dispersal is energetically costly and indicate that transience is the most costly part of the process, particularly in fragmented landscapes. Further work is required to link dispersal costs with fitness components so as to understand the likely outcome of further environmental modifications on the evolution of dispersal behaviour.
Large herbivores facilitate an insect herbivore by modifying plant community composition in a temperate grassland
<p>Large herbivores often co-occur and share plant resources with herbivorous insects in grassland ecosystems, yet how they interact with each other remains poorly understood. We conducted a series of field experiments to investigate whether and how large domestic herbivores (sheep; <i>O</i><i>vis</i><i> </i><i>aries</i>) may affect the abundance of a common herbivorous insect (aphid; <i>Hyalopterus</i><i> </i><i>pruni</i>) in a temperate grassland of northeast China. Our exclosure experiment showed that three years (2010-2012) of sheep grazing had led to 86% higher aphid abundance compared with ungrazed sites. Mechanistically, this facilitative effect was driven by grazing altering the plant community, rather than by changes in food availability and predator abundance for aphids. Sheep significantly altered plant community by reducing the abundance of unpalatable forbs for the aphids. Our small-scale forb removal experiment revealed an "associational plant defense" by forbs which protect the grass <i>Phragmites australis</i><i> </i>from being attacked by the aphids. However, selective grazing on forbs by sheep indirectly disrupted such associational plant defense, making <i>P</i><i>.</i><i> australis</i> more susceptible to aphids, consequentially increasing the density of aphids. These findings provide a novel mechanistic explanation for the effects of large herbivores on herbivorous insects by linking selective grazing to plant community composition and the responses of insect populations in grassland ecosystems. </p>
Spotted hyaena (Crocuta crocuta) feeding ecology and selectivity of large herbivorous prey in the Namib Desert
<p>We have investigated the relationship between spotted hyaenas in the south Namib Desert and large herbivorous prey, and have summarized an updated overview of predator-prey relationships in this resource-limited arid environment. Over the 52-month study, we recorded the densities (#/km<sup>-2</sup>, <u>+</u> SE) of the four local large herbivorous prey species: gemsbok (1.229, <u>+</u> 0.50), springbok (1.352, <u>+</u> 0.48), ostrich (0.648, <u>+</u> 0.23), and greater kudu (0.343, <u>+</u> 0.00). A faecal analysis was performed on 146 collected spotted hyaena scats, and prey items were identified and hairs cross-follicle analysed to the species level. Spotted hyaena diet at the study area remained opportunistic with 240 identified prey items representing eight differing prey species being recorded, ranging from ostrich eggs to large ungulates. The Ivlev's Electivity Index was used to determine which large herbivorous prey was most selected for. Although gemsbok had a higher representation of prey items in the sampled scats, all sampled large herbivorous prey species scored below 0, and are thus generally avoided in relation to their availability in the environment. If any prey preferences are expressed by spotted hyaena in the Namib, it can be presumed to be a non-sampled prey species. We therefore promote further detailed investigations into all other prey species present, and seasonal variations of prey densities and scat sampling, within the study environment.</p>
Large and small herbivores have strong effects on tundra vegetation in Scandinavia and Alaska
<p>Large and small mammalian herbivores are present in most vegetated areas in the Arctic, and often have large impacts on plant community composition and ecosystem functioning. The relative importance of different herbivores and especially how their specific impact on the vegetation varies across the Arctic is however poorly understood.</p> <p>Here, we investigate how large and small herbivores influence vegetation density and plant community composition in four arctic vegetation types in Scandinavia and Alaska. We used a unique set of exclosures, excluding only large (reindeer and muskoxen) or all mammalian herbivores (also voles and lemmings) for at least 20 years.</p> <p>We found that mammalian herbivores in general decreased Leaf Area Index, NDVI and abundance of vascular plants in all four locations, even though the strength of the effect and which herbivore type caused these effects differed across locations. In three locations, herbivore presence caused contrasting plant communities, but not in the location with lowest productivity. Large herbivores had a negative effect on plant height, whereas small mammalian herbivores increased species diversity by decreasing dominance of the initially dominating plant species. Above- or belowground disturbances caused by herbivores were found to play an important role in shaping the vegetation in all locations.</p> <p>Synthesis: Based on these results, we conclude that both small and large mammalian herbivores influence vegetation in Scandinavia and Alaska in a similar way, some of which can mitigate effects of climate change. We also see important differences across locations, but these depend rather on local herbivore- and plant community composition than large biogeographical differences among continents.</p>
Short-term plant-community responses to large mammalian herbivore exclusion in a rewilded Javan savanna
<p>Grassy biomes such as savannas are maintained by a suite of ecosystem processes from herbivory to rainfall and fire. Many studies have examined the impacts of large mammalian herbivores on herbaceous plant communities but few of these studies have been conducted in humid, fertile savannas. We present the findings of a short-term experiment that investigated the effects of herbivory in one such savanna. We erected large-herbivore exclosures in Alas Purwo National Park, Java where rainfall is high and fire is suppressed to test how herbivores impact plant community development during and in response to the wet season. When large mammalian herbivores were excluded, herbaceous plant communities in Alas Purwo were less grassy and less similar; diverging in their composition as the growing season progressed. Notably, weedy plant species (Imperata cylindrica and Senna cf. tora) appeared to benefit most from herbivore release. Our results suggest that heavy grazing pressure by native large herbivores controlled the composition of the herbaceous layer and prevented strong light competitors from becoming dominant. At the end of the growing season, herbivore exclusion plots showed higher beta diversity than plots exposed to herbivores. Our findings suggest that, at our high-rainfall site, large mammalian herbivores constrain the developmental trajectory of plant communities through the growing season.</p>
Revealing cryptic interactions between large mammalian herbivores and plant-dwelling arthropods via DNA metabarcoding
<p><span>In the past decade, it has become clear that omnivory, feeding on more than one trophic level, is important in natural and agricultural systems. Large mammalian herbivores (LMH) frequently encounter plant-dwelling arthropods (PDA) on their food plants. Yet, ingestion of PDA by LMH is only rarely addressed and the extent of this direct trophic interaction, especially at the PDA community level, remains unknown. Using a DNA metabarcoding analysis on feces of free-ranging cattle from a replicated field experiment of heavily and moderately grazed paddocks, we reveal that feeding cattle (incidentally) ingest an entire food-chain of PDA including herbivores, predators and parasites. Overall, 25 families of insects and 4 families of arachnids were ingested, a pattern that varied over the season, but not with grazing intensity. We identified the functional groups of PDA vulnerable to ingestion, such as sessile species and immature life stages. Most of the fecal samples (76%) contained sequences belonging to PDA, indicating that direct interactions are frequent. This study highlights the complex trophic connections between LMH and PDA. It may even be appropriate to consider LMH as omnivorous enemies of PDA. </span></p>
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Allen Brain Atlas
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Annotated Behaviour and Observability Dataset (ABODe)
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