Abstract
Regardless of the issue, most of the research carried out on summer pastures of European Alps had to consider the effects of grazing management, as it is an intrinsic component of alpine environment. The management intensity of grazing livestock is measured in terms of livestock stocking rate, but not always a direct measure of it is easily retrievable. Therefore, the aim of the research was to test the reliability of proxies easily retrievable from open data sources (i.e. slope and distance from buildings) in approximating the pastoral site-use intensity. To test the proxies' effectiveness two different approaches were used. With the first one, the proxies' reliability was assessed in a case-study conducted at farm scale by using the number of positions gathered with GPS collars, which are a reliable measure of livestock site-use intensity. With the second, the proxies' reliability was assessed by means of five Vegetation Ecological Groups (VEGs), used as a tool for indirect quantification of livestock site-use intensity at regional scale (thirty-two alpine valleys of the Western Italian Alps, Piedmont Region-Italy). At farm scale, distance from buildings and slope were both reliable predictors of the number of GPS locations as assessed with a Generalized Additive Model. Results of Generalized Linear Models at the regional scale showed that the values of both the slope and the distance from buildings were able to separate VEGs along the same site-use intensity gradient assessed by modelling the number of GPS locations at farm scale. By testing proxies' reliability both with a direct (i.e. GPS collar positions) and indirect (i.e. VEGs) measurement of livestock site-use intensity, results indicated that slope and distance from buildings can be considered effective surrogates of site-use intensity gradient in alpine grasslands managed under livestock grazing. Therefore, when the level of site-use intensity in research carried out in alpine summer pastures is not directly available, a reliable solution consists in the use of the terrain slope and the distance from buildings, which are also easily retrievable from open data sources or computable.
Highlights
Up to date, research on summer pastures of the European Alps has been carried on extremely variegated topics, such as on soil microorganisms [1], plant diversity [2,3,4,5], animal diversity [6,7,8], nutrient cycle [9,10,11], forage quality [12, 13], forest dynamics [14], and many other issues
Results of Generalized Linear Model (GLM) at the regional scale showed that the values of both the slope and the distance from buildings differed among the five Vegetation Ecological Groups (VEGs)
The two variables were able to separate VEGs along the same site-use intensity gradient assessed by modelling the number of Global Positioning System (GPS) locations (Fig 5) at farm scale
Summary
Research on summer pastures of the European Alps has been carried on extremely variegated topics, such as on soil microorganisms [1], plant diversity [2,3,4,5], animal diversity [6,7,8], nutrient cycle [9,10,11], forage quality [12, 13], forest dynamics [14], and many other issues. The grazing intensity of a specific area is well represented by the average stocking rate when such an area is relatively small and topographically homogeneous [17]. This condition is not common in alpine summer pastures, where slope, elevation, aspect, vegetation, etc. Vice-versa, the less accessible, less comfortable, farther away from water sources and salt supplements, and low-quality forage areas are generally discarded. As a consequence, this behavior results in an uneven spatial distribution of the stocking rate and of the site use intensity throughout the grazing area. Livestock spatial distribution can be improved with an appropriate grazing management (e.g. rotational grazing, [20, 21]) and by the strategic placement of water troughs [22] and salt supplements [23]
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