Can Grazing Behaviour Support Innovations in Grassland Management?

Can Grazing Behaviour Support Innovations in Grassland Management?

Grazing is a fundamental process affecting grassland ecosystem dynamics and functioning. Its behavioural components comprise how animals search for feed, and gather and process plant tissues in different spatio-temporal scales of the grazing process. Nowadays, there is an increasing emphasis on grazing management and the role of the grazing animal on ecosystem services, concomitantly with a decreasing emphasis on grazing management generating animal production outputs. Grazing behaviour incorporates both approaches, which are not necessarily dichotomist. It would help in order to support innovation in grazing systems. However, it is unclear how the significant knowledge, developed in this research area since Agronomy and Ecology disciplines began to interact, have supported creativity in grazing science. It seems there is a current gap in this context, which was a major concern of researcher leaders like Harry Stobbs. This paper pays tribute to him, reviewing recent grazing behaviour research and prioritising those studies originating in the favourable tropics and subtropics. New evidence on how pasture structure limits forage intake in homogeneous and heterogeneous pastures is presented. Pasture management strategies designed to maximise bite mass and forage intake per unit grazing time are assumed to promote both animal production and landscape value. To conclude, a Brazilian case study (PISA) is briefly described to illustrate how grazing behaviour research can reach farmers and change their lives by using simple management strategies (take the best and leave the rest rule) supported by reductionist approaches applied in holistic frameworks.