Herbivores override climate control of grassland production in Yellowstone National Park.

ABSTRACT: Understanding the factors regulating temporal variation in grassland annual aboveground net primary production (ANPP) is dominated by studying the effects of climate, particularly water, in ungrazed grassland. However, the overwhelming majority of the Earth's grasslands are grazed by large herbivores, which have large effects on ANPP and interact with climate in unknown ways. Here, we analyzed an eight-year dataset of ANPP across a 26-year period that included widely variable climatic conditions and consumption rates by herds of elk (Cervus elaphus), bison (Bison bison), and pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) at 25 grassland sites in Yellowstone National Park (YNP). We found that ANPP was primarily a positive function of consumption rate and secondarily affected by a nonlinear temperature e

SUBMITTER: Frank DA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12277870 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature