Satellite Symposium 3: Pastoral Systems

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In marginal areas, such as the Pyrenees, natural grasslands are the only available resource for livestock feeding. Despite this, there is a lack of simple and efficient tools for advisers to aid the management of the complex vegetation of these grasslands. Therefore, we tested an approach derived from functional ecology, to construct such tools: using biological traits to inform on the agronomic characteristics and the way farmers’ practices act on them (Ansquer et al., 2004). Nevertheless, the required protocol of measurement is still time-consuming and difficult. In this paper, we test different ways of simplifying this protocol by reducing the number of species measured and not considering specific abundances.

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How to Simplify Tools for Natural Grassland Characterisation Based on Biological Measures Without Losing Too Much Information?

In marginal areas, such as the Pyrenees, natural grasslands are the only available resource for livestock feeding. Despite this, there is a lack of simple and efficient tools for advisers to aid the management of the complex vegetation of these grasslands. Therefore, we tested an approach derived from functional ecology, to construct such tools: using biological traits to inform on the agronomic characteristics and the way farmers’ practices act on them (Ansquer et al., 2004). Nevertheless, the required protocol of measurement is still time-consuming and difficult. In this paper, we test different ways of simplifying this protocol by reducing the number of species measured and not considering specific abundances.