Large herbivores as a driving force of woodland-grassland cycles : the mutual interactions between the population dynamics of large herbivores and vegetation development in a eutrophic wetland
التفاصيل البيبلوغرافية
العنوان:
Large herbivores as a driving force of woodland-grassland cycles : the mutual interactions between the population dynamics of large herbivores and vegetation development in a eutrophic wetland
This thesis examines the mutual interactions between the population dynamics of large herbivores and wood-pasture cycles in eutrophic wetlands. Therefore, habitat use and population dynamics of large herbivores, the effects of large herbivores on vegetation development, and the mutual interactions between vegetation development and herbivore population dynamics were studied in the eutrophic wetland the Oostvaardersplassen. At the Oostvaardersplassen cattle, horses and red deer were introduced in a fenced area with no predators, and population numbers are bottom-up controlled by food supply. The study showed that high densities of cattle, horses and red deer were able to break down woody vegetation and create grasslands. As the populations of large herbivores increased, the amount of the preferred grass available per animal decreased. This forced the large herbivores to use other food plants in other vegetation types, such as scrub, and transforming these into grasslands. In this way, the large herbivores facilitated high numbers of geese. As geese can clip the grass very short (
