Download or read book Grassland written by Richard Manning and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1997-07-01 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than forty percent of our country was once open prairie, grassland that extended from Missouri to Montana. Taking a critical look at this little-understood biome, award-winning journalist Richard Manning urges the reclamation of this land, showing how the grass is not only our last connection to the natural world, but also a vital link to our own prehistoric roots, our history, and our culture. Framing his book with the story of the remarkable elk, whose mysterious wanderings seem to reclaim his ancestral plains, Manning traces the expansion of America into what was then viewed as the American desert and considers our attempts over the last two hundred years to control unpredictable land through plowing, grazing, and landscaping. He introduces botanists and biologists who are restoring native grasses, literally follows the first herd of buffalo restored to the wild prairie, and even visits Ted Turner's progressive--and controversial--Montana ranch. In an exploration of the grasslands that is both sweeping and intimate, Manning shows us how we can successfully inhabit this and all landscapes.
Download or read book Grassland written by Walter F. Wedin and published by ASA-CSSA-SSSA. This book was released on 2009 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Grassland: Quietness and Strength for a New American Agriculture takes on the task of increasing our awareness of the vital role grass and grassland plants have in ensuring a sustainable future for America. Geared toward agriculturists, students, the public, and policymakers, Grassland aims to inspire and provide the reader the foundation needed to move into the future. Three main sections * track the history of grassland farming, highlighting the voices of grassland advocates * examine the current roles that grassland plays throughout the United States * look at the benefits grass-based agriculture can provide when grass is treated as an essential resource As Wendell Berry so eloquently argues in the foreword to Grassland, True farmers have minds that are complex and responsible...They understand and honor their debts to nature. They understand and honor their obligations to neighbors and consumers...In the time that is coming, we are going to need many more such farmers than we have, and we will need them much sooner than we can expect to get them.We will get them only to the extent that young people come along who are willing to fit their farming to the nature of their farms and their home landscapes, and who recognize the paramount importance of grass and grazing animals to good farming everywhere. This book will help that happen.
Download or read book Grasslands and Climate Change written by David J. Gibson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-03-21 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive assessment of the effects of climate change on global grasslands and the mitigating role that ecologists can play.
Download or read book Grasslands Grown written by Molly Patrick Rozum and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2021-08 with total page 601 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Grasslands Grown Molly P. Rozum explores the two related concepts of regional identity and sense of place by examining a single North American ecological region: the U.S. Great Plains and the Canadian Prairie Provinces. All or parts of modern-day Alberta, Montana, Saskatchewan, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Manitoba form the center of this transnational region. As children, the first postconquest generation of northern grasslands residents worked, played, and traveled with domestic and wild animals, which introduced them to ecology and shaped sense-of-place rhythms. As adults, members of this generation of settler society worked to adapt to the northern grasslands by practicing both agricultural diversification and environmental conservation. Rozum argues that environmental awareness, including its ecological and cultural aspects, is key to forming a sense of place and a regional identity. The two concepts overlap and reinforce each other: place is more local, ecological, and emotional-sensual, and region is more ideational, national, and geographic in tone. This captivating study examines the growth of place and regional identities as they took shape within generations and over the life cycle.
Download or read book Grasslands of the World written by Victor R. Squires and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2018-09-05 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book begins with a brief account of the extraordinary sequence of events that led to emergence of grasslands as major vegetation formations that now occupy some of the driest and hottest and the highest and coldest on earth as well as vast steppes and prairies in more temperate climes. It is the story of grasses successfully competing with forests and woodlands, aided and abetted by grazing herbivores and by humans and their use of fire as a tool. It is a story of adaptation to changing climates and the changing biophysical environments. A major focus of the book is the Palaearctic biogeographic realm that extends over some 45 million km2 and thus more than 1/3 of the terrestrial ice-free surface on Earth. It comprises extensive grasslands of different types and origin, which can be subdivided into (1) natural grasslands with (1a) steppes (climatogenic in dry climates), (1b) arctic-alpine grasslands (climatogenic in cold climates) and (1c) azonal and extrazonal grasslands (pedogenic and topogenic) as well as (2) secondary grasslands created and sustained by human activities, such as livestock grazing, mowing or burning. Grasslands of the Palaearctic do not only form a major basis for the agriculture of the region and thus its food supply, but are also crucial for other ecosystem services and host a supra proportional part of the realm’s plant and animal diversity. To reflect that suitability of grasslands for biodiversity strongly depends on their state, we apply the term High Nature Value grassland to those natural grasslands that are not degraded (in good state) and those secondary grasslands that are not intensified (semi-natural). The situation in a variety of countries where grasslands are evolving under the influence of global climate change is also considered. Case studies are presented on Southern Africa, Eastern Africa, India, China, South America, North America and Australia. The concluding chapter examines a set of themes arising from the chapters that make up the bulk of this book. The following provide a focus: recent history of grassland biomes – brief recap of current thinking and recent trends with special reference to dry grasslands in the Palearctic regions; the current status of grasslands and germplasm resources (biodiversity) – an overview; management systems that ensure sustainability; how to recover degraded grasslands; socio-economic issues and considerations in grassland management; the impacts of environmental problems in grasslands such as future climate change and intensification and the problems/prospects facing pastoralists and other grassland-based livestock producers.
Download or read book Grassland Restoration and Management written by David Blakesley and published by Pelagic Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2016-04-11 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following the destruction of 95% of meadows during the twentieth century, there is an urgent need to understand what little unspoiled habitat remains in order to plan the management and restoration of existing sites, as well as re-creating future grassland habitats. This book is a much-needed guide to grassland restoration and management. Providing a thorough overview of recent research on grassland restoration and its implications for practical grassland restoration and management, it introduces grassland communities and the wildlife they support, including examples of species of conservation concern, and considers the management of semi-natural grassland habitats with particular emphasis on drier grassland habitats. Chapters cover: - Grassland character and communities - Introduction to grassland wildlife - Managing semi-natural grassland - Grassland restoration – threats and challenges - Opportunities in grassland restoration - Plant material for grassland restoration - Defining success in grassland restoration. A variety of management techniques are examined, including soil amendment, cultivation, harvesting and maintenance in creating suitable conditions for the successful restoration of species-rich grasslands. It is essential reading for conservationists, site owners or managers, practitioners, conservation organizations and students of ecological restoration with an interest in the creation of new grassland habitats, the restoration of semi-natural grassland, as well as the continuing management of semi-natural (unimproved) grassland communities.
Download or read book Grassland Plants of the British and Irish Lowlands written by Peter A. Stroh and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Sonoita Plain written by Carl E. Bock and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Appleton-Whittell Research Ranch is a tract of 8,000 acres on the Sonoita Plain that was established in 1968 by the Appleton family and is now part of the sanctuary system of the National Audubon Society. To all appearances it is an ordinary piece of land, but for the last 35 years it has been treated in an extraordinary way - by leaving it alone. No grazing to influence grass production. No dam building to hold back flash floods. No pest control. No firefighting. By employing such nonaction, might we gain a glimpse of what this land was like hundreds, even thousands, of years ago? Through essays and photographs focusing on the Research Ranch Sanctuary and surrounding area, this book reveals the complex ecology and unique aesthetics of its grasslands and savannas. Carl and Jane Bock and Stephen E. Strom share a passion for the remarkable beauty found here, and in their book they describe its environment, biodiversity, and human history.
Download or read book Forgotten Grasslands of the South written by Reed F. Noss and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2012-12-03 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Forgotten Grasslands of the South is the study of one of the biologically richest and most endangered ecosystems in North America. In a seamless blend of science and personal observation, renowned ecologist Reed Noss explains the natural history of southern grasslands, their origin and history, and the physical determinants of grassland distribution, including ecology, soils, landform, and hydrology. In addition to offering fascinating new information about these little-studied ecosystems, Noss demonstrates how natural history is central to the practice of conservation. Although theory and experimentation have recently dominated the field of ecology, ecologists are coming to realize how these distinct approaches are not divergent but complementary, and that pursuing them together can bring greater knowledge and understanding of how the natural world works and how we can best conserve it. This long-awaited work sets a new standard for scientific literature and is essential reading for those who study and work to conserve the grasslands of the South as well as for everyone who is fascinated by the natural world.
Download or read book Grassland Productivity and Ecosystem Services written by Gilles Lemaire and published by CABI. This book was released on 2011 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book contains 28 chapters with emphasis on the interactive nature of the relationships between the soil, plant, animal and environmental components of grassland systems, both natural and managed. It analyses the present knowledge and the future trends of research for combining the classical view of grasslands, as a resource for secure feeding of an increasing human population, with the more recent perspective of the contribution of grasslands to the mitigation of environmental impacts and biodiversity erosion as consequences of human society activities. The chapters are organized within five sections dealing with the different functions and the main ecosystem services expected from grasslands: (i) domestic herbivore feeding and animal production; (ii) the regulation of biogeochemical cycles and its consequences for the environment; (iii) dynamics of biodiversity hosted by grasslands; (iv) integration of grasslands within sustainable animal production systems; and (v) interactions of grassland areas with other land use systems at the landscape level.
Download or read book Grasslands and Grassland Sciences in Northern China written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1992-02-01 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume describes one of the most extensive grassland ecosystems and the efforts of Chinese scientists to understand it. Leading Chinese scientists attribute the decline in China's grasslands to overgrazing and excessive cultivation of marginal areas and discuss measures to limit the damage. The book gives its view on the Chinese approach to the study of grasslands and the relevance of this activity in China to global scientific concerns.
Download or read book XX International Grassland Conference Offered papers written by F.P. O'Mara and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-08-28 with total page 975 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book contains a compilation of offered papers presented at the main congress of the XX International Grassland Congress held in University College Dublin, Ireland from 26 June to 1 July, 2005. It is complemented by six other books arising from the XX IGC as listed on the back cover: the book of invited papers from the main congress and five books containing the proceedings of five satellite workshops held immediately after the main congress at locations in the UK and Ireland (Aberystwyth, Belfast, Cork, Glasgow and Oxford). The workshops were designed to facilitate more in-depth presentations and discussions on more specialised topics of worldwide significance. The main congress brought together scientists from many disciplines, policy makers, consultants and producers involved directly in grass production and utilisation, as well as people in associated industries. They discussed issues around the theme of the congress, Grasslands : a Global Resource. The congress programme was organised around three main thematic areas: Efficient Production from Grassland Grassland and the Environment Delivering the Benefits from Grassland"
Download or read book Grassland Management in the environmentally Sensitive Areas written by British Grassland Society. Conference and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The National Grasslands written by Francis Moul and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A guide to the American grasslands and the Grasslands National Park of Canada, this work presents a history of the region, including the establishment of the national grasslands as an important part of the New Deal's social revolution. It also provides a summary of the debates surrounding preservation and use.
Download or read book Land Use Systems in Grassland Dominated Regions written by A. Lüscher and published by vdf Hochschulverlag AG. This book was released on 2004 with total page 1272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Agriculture, alpine, global change, nutrients, farming
Download or read book Nitrogen Fluxes in Intensive Grassland Systems written by H.G. van der Meer and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 117 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Improving Grassland and Pasture Management in Temperate Agriculture written by Athole Marshall and published by Burleigh Dodds Series in Agric. This book was released on 2017-12-31 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In many countries there has been a shift to intensive grassland livestock systems with higher environmental impact. There is also greater understanding of the wider role of grasslands in delivering ecosystem services. This collection review current research into the more sustainable use of agricultural grassland.
