Campus Units
Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology
Document Type
Article
Publication Version
Published Version
Publication Date
11-7-2016
Journal or Book Title
PLoS ONE
Volume
11
Issue
11
First Page
e0165758
DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0165758
Abstract
In grasslands, overgrazing by domestic livestock, fertilization, and introduction of exotic forage species leads to plant communities consisting of a mixture of native and exotic species. These degraded grasslands present a problem for land managers, farmers, and restoration ecologists concerned with improving biodiversity while continuing to use the land for livestock production. Here we assessed the response of butterfly and plant community composition to the use of fire and moderate grazing by domestic cattle on degraded grasslands dominated by exotic plants. We evaluated change by comparing experimental pastures to two reference sites that were grasslands dominated by native plants. We used two burning and grazing treatments: 1) patch-burn graze, a heterogeneously managed treatment, where one third of the pasture is burned each year and cattle have free access to the entire pasture, and 2) graze-and-burn, a homogenously managed treatment, where the entire pasture is grazed each year and burned in its entirety every three years. We tested for change in the butterfly and plant community composition over seven years using Bray-Curtis dissimilarity measures. Over the course of seven years, degraded pastures in both treatments became more similar to reference sites with respect to the butterfly and plant communities. Only two butterfly species and two plant functional guilds exhibited significant linear trends over time, with varying responses. Compositional changes in both the butterfly and plant communities indicate that the use of moderate grazing and fire may shift butterfly and plant communities of exotic-dominated grasslands to be more similar to reference tallgrass prairies over time.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Copyright Owner
Delaney et al.
Copyright Date
2016
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Delaney, John T.; Moranz, Raymond A.; Debinski, Diane M.; Engle, David M.; and Miller, James R., "Exotic-Dominated Grasslands Show Signs of Recovery with Cattle Grazing and Fire" (2016). Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology Publications. 419.
https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/eeob_ag_pubs/419
Included in
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Commons, Entomology Commons, Natural Resources Management and Policy Commons, Plant Sciences Commons
Comments
This article is published as Delaney JT, Moranz RA, Debinski DM, Engle DM, Miller JR (2016) Exotic-Dominated Grasslands Show Signs of Recovery with Cattle Grazing and Fire. PLoS ONE 11(11): e0165758. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0165758.