The social networks of manureshed management

Manureshed management—the strategic use of manure nutrients that prioritizes recycling between livestock systems and cropping systems—provides a comprehensive framework for sustainable nutrient management that necessitates the collaboration of many actors. Understanding the social dimensions of collaboration is critical to implement the strategic and technological requirements of functional manuresheds. To improve this understanding, we identified aspirational networks of actors involved in manureshed management across local, regional, and national scales, principally in the United States, elucidating key relationships and highlighting the breadth of interactions essential to successful manureshed management. We concluded that, although the social networks vary with scale, the involvement of a common core set of actors and relationships appears to be universal to the successful integration of modern livestock and crop production systems necessary for functional manuresheds. Our analysis also reveals that, in addition to agricultural producers, local actors in extension and advisory services and private and public sectors ensure optimal outcomes at all scales. For manureshed management to successfully integrate crop and livestock production and sustainably manage manure nutrient resources at each scale, the full complement of actors identified in these social networks is critical to generate innovation and ensure collaboration continuity

Behavioral Adaptations of Nursing Brangus Cows to Virtual Fencing: Insights from a Training Deployment Phase

Virtual fencing systems have emerged as a promising technology for managing the distribution of livestock in extensive grazing environments. This study provides comprehensive documentation of the learning process involving two conditional behavioral mechanisms and the documentation of efficient, effective, and safe animal training for virtual fence applications on nursing Brangus cows. Two hypotheses were examined: (1) animals would learn to avoid restricted zones by increasing their use of containment zones within a virtual fence polygon, and (2) animals would progressively receive fewer audio-electric cues over time and increasingly rely on auditory cues for behavioral modification. Data from GPS coordinates, behavioral metrics derived from the collar data, and cueing events were analyzed to evaluate these hypotheses. The results supported hypothesis 1, revealing that virtual fence activation significantly increased the time spent in containment zones and reduced time in restricted zones compared to when the virtual fence was deactivated. Concurrently, behavioral metrics mirrored these findings, with cows adjusting their daily travel distances, exploration area, and cumulative activity counts in response to the allocation of areas with different virtual fence configurations. Hypothesis 2 was also supported by the results, with a decrease in cueing events over time and increased reliance with animals on audio cueing to avert receiving the mild electric pulse. These outcomes underscore the rapid learning capabilities of groups of nursing cows in responding to virtual fence boundaries

Ecology and Management of Annual Rangelands Series: Ecological History

The Ecology and Management of Annual Rangelands Series is a 9-part online publication that provides owners and leasees of California rangelands with a comprehensive source of information pertinent to the management and enjoyment of these lands. This information will help you formulate and implement strategies for achieving your personal goals as a landowner.California has some of the most productive croplands in the world. Recently, increasing conflicts among urban development, intensive agriculture, and protectionism have led to increasingly rigid distinctions among resource management objectives. Having a long-term perspective on the causes and interpretation of changes in the landscape can aid in resolving conflicting goals and objectives among stakeholders

Case Study: Applying Ecological Site Concepts to Adaptive Conservation Management on an Iconic Californian Landscape

On the Ground • Managers of large landscapes with limited financial resources can use ecological sites and state-and-transition models to identify landscape divisions with the highest chances of responding favorably to management activities. • This conceptual framework can help determine the optimal configuration of pastures and water developments so that conservation-focused grazing and response monitoring align with focal landscape divisions. • As communication tools, these models can help conservation land managers and graziers to better understand how the variation in landscapes affects the distribution of conservation targets and the specific locations where management can be tailored to enhance biodiversity.The Rangelands archives are made available by the Society for Range Management and the University of Arizona Libraries. Contact [email protected] for further information.Migrated from OJS platform March 202

Restoration management for spatially and temporally complex Californian grassland

Introduced species from the Mediterranean dominate plant cover of the Californian grassland, but more than one thousand native species persist at low abundance or may be locally absent. Efforts to successfully increase native abundance are complicated by the spatial and temporal complexity of the system. Highly variable rainfall, topography, and soils result in large differences in species composition across space and time. Managers must deal with this variability to carry out effective restoration. We present a conceptual management toolkit containing five steps to better organize variability, predict suitable restoration sites, and select and time treatments. The toolkit relies on the key concepts of ecological site classification, state-and-transition models, and opportunistic adaptive management to help managers achieve their restoration goals

Environmental Data_Plot_Years

This file contains environmental attributes data for each of the study reaches. It contains attributes that do not change between years (geology, elevation, etc.) and also attributes that change between years (Cattle Exclosure and Annual Precipitation). Columns are the environmental criteria, rows are the individual plot_years

Environmental Data_for ESD

This file contains the environmental attributes of each plot that did not change between the years of sampling. It was used in the Ecological Site cluster analysis to create the Ecological Site classification