Ecosystems services from natural grasslands: ¿it's possible to enhance them with more productivity?
Resumo
Grazing intensity is the key component of the interrelations between plants and their environment in pastoral ecosystems. In this way, the natural structural and floristic heterogeneity that is a response to soil variability can be modified by grazing. But the degree of such alterations must to be controlled in order to maintain ecosystems services and at same time to offers an adequate nutritional environment to the herbivores. In this paper we summarize some results from a series of experiments conducted in natural pastures from south Brazil, to demonstrate how grazing control can modified structural pasture characteristics, enhancing animal performance, soil quality, water infiltration, and producing a meat with particular fatty acids composition.
