Blog:

Grazing to minimise wildfire risk

January 29, 2021  |  Blog

Concern about wildfire risk is growing around the world. Yet experience from the GrazeLIFE study area in the Greater Côa Valley in northern Portugal is demonstrating grazing by large, free-roaming herds of herbivores can be a natural solution and a low-impact way of controlling wildfire.

Grazing as a natural solution to suppress invasive alien species

December 23, 2020  |  Blog

Invasive alien plant species form a serious challenge in many areas across Europe, where their rapid spread can severely impact ecosystems. A natural solution may be present in the form of (natural) grazing, where herbivores can suppress or even eliminate the proliferation of invasive species. In this blog, we look in more detail at the case of Amorpha fruticosa, or false indigo-bush, which causes major problems, particularly in the Danube basin, and for which extensive grazing can offer a solution.

Totally digging it: how bulls provide the opportunity of a lifetime for pioneer plants and insects

July 15, 2020  |  Blog

About a thousand years ago, large, wild herbivores started to disappear from Europe. Hunting, poaching and loss of biotope led to their decline. And with the vanishing of those large animals, their behaviour and its influence on the environment stopped too. Not only their grazing behaviour and its effect on vegetation but also the wallowing, rooting and digging. As for the last one, wild bulls used to dig pits in the rutting season to impress the opponents and the cows. As it appears now, these pits were hotspots for pioneer plants and insects.

Benefits of different types of grazing reviewed

June 17, 2020  |  Blog

iDiv-based PhD student Julia Rouet-Leduc has just completed a review of the benefits of different types of grazing. As part of the ongoing GrazeLIFE project, her work will inform the discussion about how to create a more supportive policy environment for these various grazing systems in Europe. In this blog, she walks us through some of the findings from her literature review.

Herbivore Societies

April 30, 2020  |  Blog

Remarkable observations on reintroduced herbivores in the Rhodope Mountains give an insight into how different species make use of a shared defence strategy against predators. A promising indicator of their adaptive capacity to living in the wild and a prelude to the reintroduction of complex grazing systems in rural Europe.

Living manure can return dead bugs to car windows

February 6, 2020  |  Blog

Beetles in newspaper headlines. Wild bees in the evening news. Entomologists on prime time talk shows. The latest research results on the state of insect populations in Germany and the Netherlands hit the Dutch media like a bomb in 2019.

Wild grasslands as carbon sinks – an emerging opportunity

January 22, 2020  |  Blog

Restoring natural areas to their healthy and varied state lead to benefits that are not to be underestimated. Other than holding more water, preventing soil erosion, and creating a habitat for wildlife, wild and varied grasslands has a natural way of storing and sequestering CO2 (carbon dioxide). What if curbing our emissions would not only mean to give up and hand in, but actually lead to the highly visual and experiential restoration and protection of European wilderness?

Status wild: cross-border grazing on the River Meuse

December 15, 2019  |  Blog

Imagine a magnificent wild stallion crossing a shallow, braided river, using natural gravel beds as stepping stones – it’s hard to think of a more spectacular Dutch wildlife experience. Today this phenomenon can be witnessed regularly when hiking the restored floodplains of the River Meuse on the Belgian-Dutch border.

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