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11 - Large herbivores in heterogeneous grassland ecosystems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 November 2009

By
Douglas Frank A.
Edited by
Kjell Danell ,
Roger Bergström ,
Patrick Duncan  and
John Pastor
Douglas Frank A.
Affiliation:
Biological Research Laboratories Syracuse University
Kjell Danell
Affiliation:
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Roger Bergström
Affiliation:
The Forestry Research Institute of Sweden
Patrick Duncan
Affiliation:
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Paris
John Pastor
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota, Duluth
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Summary

INTRODUCTION

Satisfying energetic and nutritional requirements is a difficult challenge for herbivores in grassland. Grass is a relatively abrasive, low‐quality forage (Van Soest 1982, Robbins 1983, McDowell 1985) whose nutritional content varies over complex spatial and temporal scales (Houston 1982, Hudson & White 1985, McNaughton 1985, Laca & Dement 1986, Senft et al. 1987, Demment & Greenwood 1988, Hobbs 1989, Singer et al. 1989). Ungulates, the principal large herbivores of grassland, are well suited for the dietary rigours of their habitat by possessing three important adaptations: (1) high‐crowned, hypsodontic dentition that resists wear and increases the capacity for long‐lived organisms to grind plant tissue; (2) a multichambered digestive tract that functions as a fermentation vat to efficiently extract energy from high cellulose ingesta; and (3) an elongation of limbs, reduction of digits and the development of a massive, hardened nail, the hoof, that provides for efficient and injury‐resistant travel over open terrain in search of food (Van Soest 1982, McNaughton 1989, 1991). This suite of adaptations facilitates energy and nutrient extraction from forage, and is testimony to the severe resource‐limiting conditions that ungulates face in a grassland habitat.

There has been considerable recent interest in factors controlling the development and maintenance of a spatial pattern in landscapes, and the flows of energy and material among landscape patches (Levin 1992, Pickett & Cadenasso 1995, Turner et al. 2001).

Type
Chapter
Information
Large Herbivore Ecology, Ecosystem Dynamics and Conservation , pp. 326 - 347
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2006

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