A narrower gap of grazing intensity. Reply to Fetzel et al. 2017. Seasonality constrains to livestock grazing intensity.

IRISARRI, JORGE GONZALO NICOLA; DERNER, JUSTIN D.; OESTERHELD, MARTIN; AGUIAR, SEBASTIÁN; GOLLUSCIO, RODOLFO A.

GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY

WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC

Año: 2017 vol. 23 p. 3965 - 3966

1354-1013

Fetzel et al. (2017) globally mapped the gap between observed and potential grazing intensity (GI): the ratio between consumption by livestock and aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP). Fetzel et al. (2017) estimated grazing land, forage production and livestock demand at a half-degree resolution. They mapped GI below 15% for most of the world. Here we present some independent tests of their predictions and show that observed GI reported in the literature is consistently higher than observed GI reported by Fetzel et al. (2017). Consequently, the gap between forage produced and consumed may be narrower.