Grazing Behavior of Livestock in Settled and Nomadic Herders Households in Mongolian Plateau

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In this study, we investigated the effects of settled grazing in Inner Mongolia and traditional nomadic grazing in Mongolia on grazing behavior of livestock using GPS satellite tracking. In summer of 2011 and 2012, we fitted GPS loggers to sheep and goats to quantify the behavior of livestock in Inner Mongolia and in Mongolia. We discovered that the mean grazing velocity (km/h) of sheep in Inner Mongolia was 0.65 ± 0.07 (km/h) and in Mongolia was 0.54 ± 0.30 (km/h). The result indicated a higher grazing velocity and longer moving distance of sheep in Inner Mongolia than that in Mongolia. However, the grazing area of the sheep in Inner Mongolia was smaller than that in Mongolia. The grazing area in Inner Mongolia was 214.88 ± 149.73 (ha/day) and 246.03 ± 197.36 (ha/day) in Mongolia. This may be a result of limited area due to the presence of fences in Inner Mongolia. We also calculated vegetation volume (height (cm) × coverage (%)) of each plant species. The vegetation survey showed that the mean volume of palatable species in Inner Mongolia was 87.5 ± 174.9 and 106.1 ± 202.6 in Mongolia. Therefore livestock have to spend more time grazing, increasing their step rate and moving longer distances. These results indicate that fencing associated with the settlement system of Inner Mongolia has created a new hot spot of land degradation and a new source of Asian dust storm outbreaks.

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