Global trends in grassland carrying capacity and relative stocking density of livestock.

ABSTRACT: Although the role of livestock in future food systems is debated, animal proteins are unlikely to completely disappear from our diet. Grasslands are a key source of primary productivity for livestock, and feed-food competition is often limited on such land. Previous research on the potential for sustainable grazing has focused on restricted geographical areas or does not consider inter-annual changes in grazing opportunities. Here, we developed a robust method to estimate trends and interannual variability (IV) in global livestock carrying capacity (number of grazing animals a piece of land can support) over 2001-2015, as well as relative stocking density (the reported livestock distribution relative to the estimated carrying capacity [CC]) in 2010. We first estimated the aboveground bioma

SUBMITTER: Piipponen J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9321565 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature