Consumption rate and dietary choice of cattle on meadow steppe vegetation
Abstract
Grasslands have been exposed to detrimental land-use changes worldwide in the recent past, including agricultural intensification and the cessation of management. The maintenance of traditional management and understanding its effects on vegetation is essential for effective biodiversity conservation. Therefore we studied the direct effects of grazing on species-rich meadow steppes and the underlying mechanisms of dietary choice of cattle using trait-based approaches. Our study sitem was divided into two adjacent grazing units, managed differently in the study year. The control unit was ungrazed in the year of sampling while the other one was grazed for three months before the sampling with 0.3–0.5 animal unit/ha. We collected 70 randomly selected above-ground biomass samples (20cm×20cm) in both units in the middle of June 2014. Samples were sorted to litter, moss biomass and green biomass of each vascular plant species separately, and then dry weights were measured. The consumption of the litter and moss biomass was negligible, while cattle ingested 65% of green biomass of vascular plants. Cattle showed significant preference to species characterized by high specific leaf area and high nitrogen content. Our study underline that it is important to consider the productivity and plant traits (i.e. SLA) during the planning of a sustainable grazing regime.
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