Roholah Zeynivand; Majid Ajorlo; Ali Ariapour
Abstract
This study aimed to investigate the effects of livestock grazing intensities (lenient, moderate, heavy and no-grazing) on herbaceous plant species composition and diversity (grasses and forbs) in understory of Quercus spp. and Pistacia spp. forest in Kebirkouh Mountain, Darehshahr city, Ilam Province, ...
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This study aimed to investigate the effects of livestock grazing intensities (lenient, moderate, heavy and no-grazing) on herbaceous plant species composition and diversity (grasses and forbs) in understory of Quercus spp. and Pistacia spp. forest in Kebirkouh Mountain, Darehshahr city, Ilam Province, Iran. Vegetation sampling was carried out with randomized-systematic method at flowering time of the dominant plant species in April 2017. Within each quadrat, number of species, name of plants, density, life form and palatability class were recorded for herbaceous plants. Species diversity with the Simpson’s and Shannon-Weiner indices, species richness with Margalef and Menhinick indexes, and evenness with Peet and Sheldon indices were calculated in Ecological Methodology software version 6.1.4. The highest value of Simpson index for grasses and forbs was 0.972 (moderate grazing) and 96.95 (exclosure). Also, the highest value of Shannon index for grasses and forbs was 4.51 (heavy grazing) and 4.56 (heavy grazing), respectively. The highest richness of grasses and forbs was observed in grazed area with moderate intensity and no-grazing area, respectively. In the area without grazing, the richness of forbs was 4.4 and 2.75 according to Margalef and Menhinick indexes. The values of the Margalef and Menhinick richness indexes for grasses in grazed area with a moderate intensity were18 and 15 percent higher than the grazed area with heavy intensity. Peet and Sheldon evenness indexes were the highest for grasses and forbs in heavily grazed area and the lowest for grasses in the moderate grazing intensity and for forbs in the exclosure.
sepideh fazelian; Pejman tahmasbi; Hamzehali Shirmardi
Abstract
Endozoochory is one of the seed dispersal modes through animal’s digestive systems transmission and the increases rate germination and plant establishment. The aim of this study, investigated the relationship between seed characteristics and the passage through the digestive tract of livestock ...
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Endozoochory is one of the seed dispersal modes through animal’s digestive systems transmission and the increases rate germination and plant establishment. The aim of this study, investigated the relationship between seed characteristics and the passage through the digestive tract of livestock and domestic animals (cattle, sheep and goats) in the 7 species perennial grass 8 species perennial forbs and 3 species annuals forbs in semi-steppe rangelands of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari. The first, morphological seeds characteristics including: seed weight, length, width and shape of the seeds measured, and Seeds were fed to the livestock (animal treatments) and the excreta collected to order records germination success of plant species in a greenhouse during a four months experiment. Using multiple regression models the relationship between seed characteristics and success germination was evaluated and compared for different animals. Simple linear regression showed that the percentage of germination after passing through the digestive tract of livestock and properties measured, there is no communication and seed size, weight, length and width of the seed does not affect the animal through the gastrointestinal tract. The logarithmic regression showed that for perennial grasses between seed length and germination, exists direct relationship in all animal treatments. The results of this study showed that, there is no Correlation between morphological characteristics of seeds and passing through the digestive tract of livestock.
