Slope and distance from buildings are easy-to-retrieve proxies for estimating livestock site-use intensity in alpine summer pastures

Regardless of the issue, most of the research carried out on summer pastures of European Alps had to consider the effects of grazing management, as it is an intrinsic component of alpine environment. The management intensity of grazing livestock is measured in terms of livestock stocking rate, but n...

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Autores principales:	Marco Pittarello, Simone Ravetto Enri, Michele Lonati, Giampiero Lombardi
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2021
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/dc897db121d146be91fbcac7c1ac18e9
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:dc897db121d146be91fbcac7c1ac18e92021-11-11T06:44:16ZSlope and distance from buildings are easy-to-retrieve proxies for estimating livestock site-use intensity in alpine summer pastures1932-6203https://doaj.org/article/dc897db121d146be91fbcac7c1ac18e92021-01-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8565746/?tool=EBIhttps://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203Regardless of the issue, most of the research carried out on summer pastures of European Alps had to consider the effects of grazing management, as it is an intrinsic component of alpine environment. The management intensity of grazing livestock is measured in terms of livestock stocking rate, but not always a direct measure of it is easily retrievable. Therefore, the aim of the research was to test the reliability of proxies easily retrievable from open data sources (i.e. slope and distance from buildings) in approximating the pastoral site-use intensity. To test the proxies’ effectiveness two different approaches were used. With the first one, the proxies’ reliability was assessed in a case-study conducted at farm scale by using the number of positions gathered with GPS collars, which are a reliable measure of livestock site-use intensity. With the second, the proxies’ reliability was assessed by means of five Vegetation Ecological Groups (VEGs), used as a tool for indirect quantification of livestock site-use intensity at regional scale (thirty-two alpine valleys of the Western Italian Alps, Piedmont Region—Italy). At farm scale, distance from buildings and slope were both reliable predictors of the number of GPS locations as assessed with a Generalized Additive Model. Results of Generalized Linear Models at the regional scale showed that the values of both the slope and the distance from buildings were able to separate VEGs along the same site-use intensity gradient assessed by modelling the number of GPS locations at farm scale. By testing proxies’ reliability both with a direct (i.e. GPS collar positions) and indirect (i.e. VEGs) measurement of livestock site-use intensity, results indicated that slope and distance from buildings can be considered effective surrogates of site-use intensity gradient in alpine grasslands managed under livestock grazing. Therefore, when the level of site-use intensity in research carried out in alpine summer pastures is not directly available, a reliable solution consists in the use of the terrain slope and the distance from buildings, which are also easily retrievable from open data sources or computable.Marco PittarelloSimone Ravetto EnriMichele LonatiGiampiero LombardiPublic Library of Science (PLoS)articleMedicineRScienceQENPLoS ONE, Vol 16, Iss 11 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Marco Pittarello Simone Ravetto Enri Michele Lonati Giampiero Lombardi Slope and distance from buildings are easy-to-retrieve proxies for estimating livestock site-use intensity in alpine summer pastures
description	Regardless of the issue, most of the research carried out on summer pastures of European Alps had to consider the effects of grazing management, as it is an intrinsic component of alpine environment. The management intensity of grazing livestock is measured in terms of livestock stocking rate, but not always a direct measure of it is easily retrievable. Therefore, the aim of the research was to test the reliability of proxies easily retrievable from open data sources (i.e. slope and distance from buildings) in approximating the pastoral site-use intensity. To test the proxies’ effectiveness two different approaches were used. With the first one, the proxies’ reliability was assessed in a case-study conducted at farm scale by using the number of positions gathered with GPS collars, which are a reliable measure of livestock site-use intensity. With the second, the proxies’ reliability was assessed by means of five Vegetation Ecological Groups (VEGs), used as a tool for indirect quantification of livestock site-use intensity at regional scale (thirty-two alpine valleys of the Western Italian Alps, Piedmont Region—Italy). At farm scale, distance from buildings and slope were both reliable predictors of the number of GPS locations as assessed with a Generalized Additive Model. Results of Generalized Linear Models at the regional scale showed that the values of both the slope and the distance from buildings were able to separate VEGs along the same site-use intensity gradient assessed by modelling the number of GPS locations at farm scale. By testing proxies’ reliability both with a direct (i.e. GPS collar positions) and indirect (i.e. VEGs) measurement of livestock site-use intensity, results indicated that slope and distance from buildings can be considered effective surrogates of site-use intensity gradient in alpine grasslands managed under livestock grazing. Therefore, when the level of site-use intensity in research carried out in alpine summer pastures is not directly available, a reliable solution consists in the use of the terrain slope and the distance from buildings, which are also easily retrievable from open data sources or computable.
format	article
author	Marco Pittarello Simone Ravetto Enri Michele Lonati Giampiero Lombardi
author_facet	Marco Pittarello Simone Ravetto Enri Michele Lonati Giampiero Lombardi
author_sort	Marco Pittarello
title	Slope and distance from buildings are easy-to-retrieve proxies for estimating livestock site-use intensity in alpine summer pastures
title_short	Slope and distance from buildings are easy-to-retrieve proxies for estimating livestock site-use intensity in alpine summer pastures
title_full	Slope and distance from buildings are easy-to-retrieve proxies for estimating livestock site-use intensity in alpine summer pastures
title_fullStr	Slope and distance from buildings are easy-to-retrieve proxies for estimating livestock site-use intensity in alpine summer pastures
title_full_unstemmed	Slope and distance from buildings are easy-to-retrieve proxies for estimating livestock site-use intensity in alpine summer pastures
title_sort	slope and distance from buildings are easy-to-retrieve proxies for estimating livestock site-use intensity in alpine summer pastures
publisher	Public Library of Science (PLoS)
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/dc897db121d146be91fbcac7c1ac18e9
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_version_	1718439545890930688

Slope and distance from buildings are easy-to-retrieve proxies for estimating livestock site-use intensity in alpine summer pastures

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