Bundles of ecosystem services affected by rangeland management practices: Insights from a global experimental network

LAURA YAHDJIAN; TOGNETTI, P. M.; SOFIA CAMPANA; BORER, E. T.; ERIC W. SEABLOOM; PROBER, S. M.; ANDREW MACDOUGALL; POWER, SALLY A.

Saint Paul, Minnesota

Workshop; Nutrient Network Workshop; 2021

University Of Minnesota

Grasslands have been managed for livestock production for decades, which involved the introduction of exotic domestic herbivores (cows, horses, sheep) and the management of domestic-native grazers (guanacos in Patagonia, Argentina). Rangelands produce a great variety of ecosystem services as the provisioning of forage for meat or wool which have market value, and many other critical ecosystem services without market value as regulating, cultural, and supporting services (Sala et al. 2017). Since its conceptualization, the focus of ecosystem services (or Nature Benefits to People sensu IPBES) has changed from the description of the processes involved in the delivery of a single service at a point in time to approaches for analysing the capacity of nature to produce multiple ecosystem services, including climate adaptation services (Lavorel et al. 2015). Each management tool for livestock recommendations has different impacts and there are cases of synergistic and antagonistic interactions among types of ecosystem services. For instance, fertilizer increase production and forage quality but decrease biodiversity and can have environmental impacts (i.e. eutrophication). The loss of some species or the invasion by exotic species because of eutrophication might be particularly problematic in some grasslands. On the other hand, synergistic interactions, or win?win conditions, indicate that management leading to the increase of one type of ecosystem service may result in the increase of other ecosystem services. For instance, those that may lead to increased carbon sequestration then resulting in increased water holding capacity and soil fertility. Also, cultural services and biodiversity conservation, produce multiple intertwined values including GHG emission reductions (Standish and Prober 2020, Piñeiro et al 2019).NutNet has produced a great amount of ecological knowledge that is potentially interesting to inform rangeland ecology. Rangeland management involve fertilizer application, grazing management (grazing intensity), and exotic/problematic species control in some places. The conceptual framework developed under the Ecosystems Services?s approach may be used as a general framework to inform rangers and general public. So the questions remains, with the information NutNet has already collect can we extract some conclusions potentially applied in rangeland ecology? Is removing domestic grazers a way to restore grasslands? Which are the effects of NPK long-term fertilizer on forage production and supporting ES? Which is the main trade-off of fertilization and grazing exclusion?