Abstract
Regenerative grazing management (ReGM) seeks to mimic natural grazing dynamics to restore degraded soils and the ecological processes underpinning sustainable livestock production while enhancing biodiversity. Regenerative grazing, including holistic planned grazing and related methods, is an adaptive, rotational stocking approach in which dense livestock herds are rotated rapidly through multiple paddocks in short bouts of grazing to defoliate plants evenly and infrequently, interspersed with long recovery periods to boost regrowth. The concentrated “hoof action” of herds in ReGM is regarded vital for regenerating soils and ecosystem services. Evidence (from 58 studies) that ReGM benefits biodiversity is reviewed. Soils enriched by ReGM have increased microbial bioactivity, higher fungal:bacteria biomass, greater functional diversity, and richer microarthropods and macrofauna communities. Vegetation responds inconsistently, with increased, neutral, or decreased total plant diversity, richness of forage grasses and invasive species under ReGM: grasses tend to be favored but shrubs and forbs can be depleted by the mechanical action of hooves. Trampling also reduces numerous arthropods by altering vegetation structure, but creates favorable habitat and food for a few taxa, such as dung beetles. Similarly, grazing-induced structural changes benefit some birds (for foraging, nest sites) while heavy stocking during winter and droughts reduces food for seedeaters and songbirds. With herding and no fences, wildlife (herbivores and predators) thrives on nutritious regrowth while having access to large undisturbed areas. It is concluded that ReGM does not universally promote biodiversity but can be adapted to provide greater landscape habitat heterogeneity suitable to a wider range of biota.
Highlights
Regenerative Agriculture is a broad movement that has rapidly gained prominence in the agricultural community as well as in the popular discourse and academic literature over the last 5–6 years (Massy, 2017; Lal, 2020; Giller et al, 2021)
Mechanism whereby different disturbances exerted by intense grazing directly or indirectly affect biodiversity are summarized followed by a brief consideration of how regenerative grazing management (ReGM) could be improved to better benefit biodiversity
Reduction in species richness under ReGM ranged from 10% (Hall et al, 2014) to over 80% (Scott-Shaw and Morris, 2015), with grasses (Allington and Vallone, 2011), forbs (Lawrence, 2019) and shrubs (McManus et al, 2018) negatively affected by intense grazing and trampling, especially during droughts (Souther et al, 2020)
Summary
Regenerative Agriculture is a broad movement that has rapidly gained prominence in the agricultural community as well as in the popular discourse and academic literature over the last 5–6 years (Massy, 2017; Lal, 2020; Giller et al, 2021). Biodiversity (species richness and diversity indices) is included as key indicator for verifying the success of ReGM (Savory Institute, 2019) and is valued by regenerative ranchers as a fundamental driver of the ecological and economic sustainability of their farm (Stinner et al, 1997) but little information is available on the effects of intensive, infrequent grazing on different biota (Carter et al, 2014) and what synergies exist and possible tradeoffs will be required to simultaneously achieve high livestock production and biodiversity conservation (Lawrence, 2019) To start filling this gap, this review examined 58 studies (see Supplementary Data Sheet 1—Search strategy) on the positive, negative, or neutral effects on the diversity of soil microbes, plants, invertebrates, birds, and mammals done in North America (26), Africa (17), Australia (10), South America (3), and New Zealand (2). Mechanism whereby different disturbances exerted by intense grazing (trampling, grazing, nutrient addition) directly or indirectly affect biodiversity are summarized followed by a brief consideration of how ReGM could be improved to better benefit biodiversity
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