Academic literature on the topic 'Piosphere'

The activities of livestock in arid environments typically centre on watering points, with grazing impacts often predicted to decrease uniformly, as radial piospheres, with distance from water. In patchy desert environments, however, the spatial distribution of grazing impacts is more difficult to predict. In this study sightings and dung transects are used to identify preferred cattle habitats in the heterogeneous dune system of the Simpson Desert, central Australia. The importance of watering points as foci for cattle activity was confirmed and it was shown that patchily distributed gidgee woodland, which comprises only 16% of the desert environment, is the most heavily used habitat for cattle away from water and provides critical forage and shade resources. By contrast, dune swales and sides, which are dominated by shade- and forage-deficient spinifex grassland and comprise >70% of the available habitat, were less utilised. These results suggest that habitat use by cattle is influenced jointly by water point location and by the dispersion of woodland patches in a resource-poor matrix. The findings were used to build a modified conceptual model of cattle habitat use which was compared with an original piosphere model, and the consequences for wildlife in environments where the model applies are discussed.

Since pastoralism began in Australia???s rangelands, the number of artificial watering points (AWPs) has increased dramatically, such that today, few areas of rangeland are further than 10 km from water. This increased availability of water has caused many ecological impacts. Unfortunately, such impacts are poorly understood in the context of an Australian conservation reserve, thus hindering strategic management. This study examined the spatial distribution of vertebrate (kangaroos, small mammals, lizards and avifauna) and vegetative variables around open AWPs as well as AWPs that have been closed since pastoralism (sheep-grazing) ceased nearly thirty years ago in Sturt National Park, arid New South Wales. The study also examined vertebrate use of AWPs, with a particular emphasis on kangaroos and avifauna. The study revealed that most variables showed few differences in spatial distribution with distance from open and closed AWPs, thus suggesting that the observed piospheric impacts were primarily attributable to historical sheep-grazing. Indeed, piospheric patterns were weak suggesting some recovery over the last thirty years. That kangaroos did not exhibit water-focused grazing is no surprise, since despite their regular use of AWPs, particularly during hot, dry times, the current spatial arrangement of AWPs facilitates regular travel to, and from, such resources allowing kangaroos, like much other fauna, to distribute themselves in relation to food and shelter preferences rather than in relation to water supply. In contrast, the majority of avifaunal groups (excluding ground-dwelling species) were clustered around open AWPs, often irrespective of season, because of food and water requirements. Such spatial concentrations of avifauna are thought to cause a range of interspecific effects. Experimental AWP closure and GIS modelling showed that whilst closure of AWPs will increase the average distance to water, which will have key benefits, the majority of areas in Sturt National Park would still be accessible to most water-dependent species even if all unused AWPs were closed. Strategic retention of AWPs to replace water sources lost since European settlement, aid threatened and migratory species??? conservation and enhance nature-based tourism opportunities is thus recommended and an example of a strategic management and monitoring plan outlined.

The role of artificial watering points in the avifaunal dynamics of the semi-arid mallee woodlands of southeast Australia was examined. Species richness and abundance were monitored throughout the year at different distances from water to determine how birds were distributed around water points and how this changed in relation to environmental factors such as climate. Vegetation attributes were also measured to determine which factors explained patterns in the avifauna with distance from water, and also to allow a description of the vegetation in relation to the water points. Water points were monitored throughout the year to determine which species were utilising them, under which environmental circumstances and for what purposes. Knowledge of the water utilisation behaviour of individual bird species allowed some explanation of their distribution patterns, as well as an ability to predict the likely effects of water point closure on those bird species. The closure of two water points during the study allowed an assessment of the immediate effects of water point closure on avifauna (For complete abstract open document)

This thesis explains two aspects of animal spatial foraging behaviour arising as a direct consequence of animals' need to drink water: the concentration of animal impacts, and the response of animals to those impacts. In semi-arid rangelands, the foraging range of free-ranging large mammalian herbivores is constrained by the distribution of drinking water during the dry season. Animal impacts become concentrated around these watering sites according to the geometrical relationship between the available foraging area and the distance from water, and the spatial distribution of animal impacts becomes organised along a utilisation gradient termed a "piosphere". During the dry season the temporal distribution of the impacts is determined by the day-to-day foraging behaviour of the animals. The specific conditions under which these spatial foraging processes determine the piosphere pattern have been identified in this thesis. At the core of this investigation are questions about the response of animals to the heterogeneity of their resources. Aspects of spatial foraging are widely commented on whilst explaining the consequences of piosphere phenomena for individual animal intake, population dynamics, feeding strategies and management. Implicated are our notions of optimal foraging, scale in animal response, and resource matching. This thesis addressed each of these. In the specific context of piospheres, the role of energy balance in optimal foraging was also tested. Field experiments for this thesis showed a relationship between goat browsing activity and measures of spatial impact. As a preliminary step to investigating animal response to resource heterogeneity, the spatial pattern of foraging behaviour/impacts was described using spatial statistics. Browsing activity varied daily revealing animal assessment of the spatial heterogeneity of their resources and an energetic basis for foraging decisions. This foraging behaviour was shown to be determined by individual plants rather than at larger scales of plant aggregation. A further experiment investigated the claim that defoliation has limited impact on browser intake rate, suggesting that piospheres may have few consequences for browser intake. This experiment identified a constraining influence of browse characteristics at the small scale on goat foraging by relating animal intake rate to plant bite size and distribution. Computer simulation experiments for this thesis supported these empirical findings by showing that the distribution of spatial impacts was sensitive to the marginal value of forage resources, and identified plant bite size and distribution as the causal factors in limiting animal intake rate in the presence of a piosphere. As a further description of spatial pattern, piospheres were characterised by applying a contemporary ecological theory that ranks resource patches into a spatial hierarchy. Ecosystem dynamics emerge from the interactions between these patches, with piospheres being an emergent property of a natural plant-herbivore system under specific conditions of constrained foraging. The generation of a piosphere was shown to be a function of intake constraints and available foraging area, whilst piosphere extent was shown to be independent of daily energy balance including expenditure on travel costs. A threshold distance for animal foraging range arising from a hypothesised conflict between daily energy intake and expenditure was shown not to exist, whereas evidence for an intermediate distance from water as a focus for accumulated foraging activity was identified. Individual animal foraging efficiency in the computer model was shown to be sensitive to the piosphere, while animal population dynamics were found to be determined in the longer term by dry season key resources near watering points. Time lags were found to operate in the maintenance of the gradient, and the density dependent moderation of the animal population. The latter was a direct result of the inability of animal populations to match the distribution of their resources with the distribution of their foraging behaviour, because of their daily drinking requirements. The result is that animal forage intake was compromised by the low density of dry season forage in the vicinity of a water point. This thesis also proposes that piospheres exert selection pressures on traits to maximise energy gain from the spatial heterogeneity of dry season resources, and that these have played a role in the evolution of large mammalian herbivores.

There is concern that the communal rangelands of Botswana are overstocked with cattle, and that this has led to unwanted ecological changes. These changes are assumed to be most prominent around boreholes. This study describes vegetation and soil piospheres around boreholes in Eastern Botswana and investigates factors associated with their development. The classical range succession model and its modifications, the bush encroachment theories and the soil-nutrient transfer model, have been applied here to explain changes in vegetation and soil variables with distance from artificial water points. Data on soil texture, soil nutrients, vegetation species composition and cover, dung weight and bare ground were collected from boreholes of different ages, with different numbers of cattle using them. Piosphere patterns were observed. However, some of the patterns were not in accordance with the classical range succession model and the bush encroachment theories. The frequent occurrence of palatable grasses (Panicum maximum, Setaria verticiliata and Digitaria milanjiand) nearer to water points where the grazing pressure is highest, and of unpalatable ones (Aristida congesta and Eragrostis rigidior) further away, where the grazing pressure is minimal, contradicts the classical range succession model. Total tree cover along the gradient did not show any changes, which contradicts bush encroachment theory (two-layer soil moisture model). The concentration of soil nutrients and dung weight close to boreholes was well predicted by the soil-nutrient transfer model. The frequency of Acacia tortilis and Dicrostachys cinerea and bare patches, increased towards boreholes. Grass cover, occurrence of Terminalia sericea, Boscia albitrunca and Combretum apiculatum increased with distance from water points. The results suggest that the range succession model and its modification, the twolayer soil moisture model, cannot satisfactorily explain vegetation changes with distance from water points. Species composition at a point may be affected by the growth, survival, recovery and reproductive strategies of different species, fire, selectivity of browsers and nutrients status, as well as grazing disturbance. Therefore, the 'state and transition' model is recommended, as it considers factors that are ignored by the classical range succession model, and is appropriate for analysing vegetation change under highly variable rainfall. The adverse impacts of grazing around boreholes could be reduced by controlling cattle distribution on the range as a whole.

After European settlement, Australian rangelands especially in South Australia underwent significant changes because of the main land use of pastoralism. Many studies have revealed that the plant communities are negatively effected by herbivory mainly by sheep. The main aim of this study is to separate the different effects of sheep, rabbits and kangaroos. This was examined by survey supported by experimental and modelling research. A 32,000 km² area previously surveyed by Tiver and Andrew (1997) in eastern South Australia was re-surveyed to monitor populations of perennial plant species at sites of various intensity of grazing by sheep, rabbits and kangaroos (goats populations are low in the study area), the most important vertebrate herbivores. Plant population data were collected in both sheep paddocks and historically ungrazed by sheep (road reserves) by using the Random Walk method and analyzed using Generalized Linear Modelling (GLM) to separate the effects of sheep and rabbits on plant regeneration and their regeneration in response to grazing. These data were also compared to similar data collected by Tiver and Andrew in 1992 (1997) to ascertain if the reduction in rabbit numbers through introduction of RCV had allowed increased regeneration. Regeneration of many species inside paddocks were negatively affected and species in roadside reserves neither did not significantly increase from 1992 to 2004. However, some species showed increase of populations in spite of sheep grazing, with some species being less susceptible than others. This research also indicates kangaroo grazing impact on some plant species. Reduction in rabbit numbers following the 1995 release of calicivirus has not been effective in restoring regeneration. Another experiment was conducted at Middleback Field Station near Whyalla to identify herbivore grazing pressure on the arid zone plant species Acacia aneura using unfenced, sheep fenced and rabbit fenced grazing exclosures. This experiment was set up with seedlings in exclosures, ten replicates of each treatment, at plots four different distances from the watering point to identify the survivorship of seedlings. Data were collected by recording canopy volumes of seedling over an 18 month period and analyzed by Residual Maximal Likelihood (REML). Seedlings both near and far from the watering point were severely effected by large herbivores, either sheep, kangaroos or both, and in a separate experiment kangaroo grazing effects on the seedling were also identified. Seedlings browsed by the rabbits were recovered better than the seedlings grazed by the large herbivores. Decreasing kangaroo activities has been noticed when the rabbit movements increased. Computer modelling was conducted to predict the future plant population structure over 500 years using a matrix population model developed by Tiver et al. (2006) and using data collected in the survey as a starting point. Extinction probabilities of populations of Acacia aneura near watering points, far from watering points and under pulse grazing scenarios were compared. Sheep grazing was found to cause eventual extinction of populations in all parts of sheep paddocks. Together, the results indicate that sheep are the major herbivore suppressing regeneration of perennial plant species. Kangaroo and rabbits have an identifiable but lesser effect. The results have implications for conservation and pastoral management. To achieve ecological sustainability of arid lands a land-use system including a network of reserves ungrazed by sheep and with control of both rabbit and kangaroo numbers will be required.

Herbivores have a significant influence on their environment. Factors that influence herbivore distribution in a landscape are important for conservation. Artificial water provision is one such factor, with water sources being focal points of herbivore activity. Variation between herbivore utilisation of different waterhole types and habitat integrity surrounding the different waterholes is assessed in this study. Correlations are drawn between herbivore utilisation and habitat integrity to quantify the impact that artificial waterholes have on the landscape. A scoring system is devised to investigate the various factors affecting vegetation around artificial waterholes. Results show that there are significant variations between herbivore utilisation for different artificial waterhole types, as well as significant variation in habitat integrity surrounding the different waterhole types. Distance between waterholes and drainage lines, and utilisation by specific herbivore species have a significant impact on habitat integrity - specifically affecting veld condition and disturbance observed on woody plant species. A habitat score that was created by combining data from both the herbaceous and woody layers is not affected by waterhole type, distance from waterholes, or the different herbivore species utilising the different waterhole types. Earth dams have the greatest impact on surrounding vegetation and are the most utilised waterhole type. Closures of earth dams are not recommended due to their importance to herbivores. Less utilised waterhole types are also important, mitigating the impact of herbivore damage to vegetation at earth dams.
Environmental Sciences
M. Sc. (Nature Conservation)