Here is your essay on Grassland Management!
Grassland biomes are important to maintain the crops of many domesticated and wild herbivorous mammals such as horses, mules, asses, cattle, pigs, sheeps, goats, buffaloes, camels, dcers, zebras, etc., all of which provide food, milk, wool, hide, or transportation, etc., to man. The range management involves an important application of ecological principles in maintaining the grassland biomes.
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The objective here is to preserve grasslands for maximum forage, i.e., food for cattle In India, most of the grasslands represent the serial stages in succession and if they are not maintained by grazing and fire they would develop into forest communities.
A team of scientists at Indian Grasslands and Fodder Research Institute, Jhansi and Central Arid Zone Research Institute, Jodhpur, is mainly entrusted with such responsibility.
During range management a suitable degree of grazing is to be maintained. Some species are more palatable to the stock and are very sensitive for grazing and thus overgrazing usually results into their disappearance from the area where now some unpalatable, annuals, weeds, shrubs start to grow and turn the area into man-made desert. The palatable plant species, which are sensitive to grazing, have been called the decreasers whose disappearance from the area is an indicator of grazing stress and warning signal for range managers.
Overgrazing has certain other ecological effects —reduction of the mulch cover of the soil occurs, microclimate becomes more dry and severe and is readily invaded by xerophytic plants. Due to absence of humus cover, mineral soil surface is heavily trampled when wet and produces puddling of the surface layers, which in turn reduces the infiltration of water into the soil and accelerates its runoff, producing drought.
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These changes all contribute to the reduction of the rate of energy flow, and the disruption of the stratification and periodicity of the primary producer’s results in a breakdown of the biogeochemical cycles of water, carbon and nitrogen.
Water and wind erosion completely breakdown a very dry grassland-microclimate further, intensive grazing which results in increased areas of bare soil, creates a new habitat for burrowing animals such as mice, jackrabbits, gophers, prairie dogs, locusts, etc., which render sterile much areas of forage lands.
In range management, fire plays an important role. Under moist conditions fire favours grass over trees and under dry conditions fire is often necessary to maintain grasslands against the invasion of desert shrubs. Burning of Cynodon dactylon increases forage yields.
Wild-life management remains chiefly concerned with the protection, preservation, perpetuation and judicious control of populations of rare species of plants or animals in their natural habitats.
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In fact population of many animal species has been changing since prehistoric time. Over the past two thousand years about 106 species of animals and 139 species of birds have become extinct due to climatic and geographical changes and also by overhunting by man for food, fur, or other reasons. According to Red Data Book of ecologists about 600 more species of animals and birds are going to be extinct, if not protected by wild-life management. Wild-life management includes following fundamental approaches:
(i) Enaction of wild-life acts to prevent the hunting of certain rare species of wild-life. For example, certain Indian animal species such as python, leathery turtle, marsh crocodile, Gharial, Bustard, Peafowl, Black buck elephants. Eastern pangolin, Snow leopard, etc., are protected by Law.
(ii) Species preservation. Nature reserves are usually designated in order to give protection to a species of plant or animal which is rare. In Britain certain sea birds, wild birds and plant species are protected.
The Fame Islands off the coast of Northumberland (UK) are a sanctuary for the grey seals. In the northern Alberta and the North-West Territories of Canada, Wood Buffalo National Park preserves in a wild and almost roadless terrain one of the few remaining herds of North American bison.
To small islands in Sabah, Malaysia, protect frigate birds, and Udjung Kulon —Panailan in Western Java preserves 25 to 40 Javan rhinos. Kazirariga Sanctuary (Assam) shelters one horned rhinoceros and Gir forests (Gujrat) preserve Gir lions.
(iii) Assemblage protection. Most commonly an assemblage of species is protected. The assemblages may have some linked affinity —wildfowl refuges of USA cater for the nesting or migration of many species of ducks, geese and waders. High mountain reserves often protect a very diverse suite of alpine plants sometimes with the attendant fauna.
In India Delhi Zoo and Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary are specifically managed for the assemblage of migratory birds. The management of assemblage protection is designed to provide maximum cover and food supply for the migratory birds and to provide refuge from hunting.
(iv) Habitat preservation reserves which are large and diverse enough to protect whole sets of ecosystems which are on a national or world basis, are often designated as National Parks. Indian subcontinent has more than 50 sanctuaries, few national parks, protected areas and reserves (Natrajan, 1977). Indian sanctuaries possess unique landscapes, broad-leaved forests, mountain forests and virgin bushlands in deltas of big rivers.