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<p>Understanding the mechanisms that shape ecosystem resistance to increasing livestock grazing pressure, a major driver of land degradation, is essential for predicting its impacts and informing sustainable land management strategies. This issue is particularly relevant in drylands, which host half of the world’s livestock production and are highly vulnerable to desertification caused by overgrazing. Here we conduct a standardized field survey across 73 dryland sites in 25 countries to simultaneously evaluate how climatic, edaphic, vegetation and grazing-related factors influence ecosystem resistance—defined here as the capacity to maintain vegetation cover under increasing grazing pressure. We found that increasing grazing pressure reduced vegetation cover in 80% of sites, with an average decline of 35%. Plant species richness emerged as the strongest predictor of ecosystem resistance, with higher richness associated with lower vegetation cover loss. Functional trait data indicated that this positive effect was mainly explained by complementarity in trait values among plants, rather than by functional redundancy. Our results indicate that conserving plant diversity is key to strengthening ecosystem resistance and sustaining dryland functioning under intensifying grazing pressure.</p>

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Plant diversity enhances ecosystem resistance to increasing grazing pressure in global drylands

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年1月5日

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  • Lucio Biancari,
  • Gastón R. Oñatibia,
  • Yoann Le Bagousse-Pinguet,
  • Nicolas Gross,
  • Laura Yahdjian,
  • Martín R. Aguiar,
  • Hugo Saiz,
  • David J. Eldridge,
  • Enrique Valencia,
  • Xoaquín Moreira,
  • Victoria Ochoa,
  • Beatriz Gozalo,
  • Sergio Asensio,
  • César Plaza,
  • Emilio Guirado,
  • Miguel García-Gómez,
  • Juan J. Gaitán,
  • Jaime Martínez-Valderrama,
  • Betty J. Mendoza,
  • Fernando T. Maestre

摘要

Understanding the mechanisms that shape ecosystem resistance to increasing livestock grazing pressure, a major driver of land degradation, is essential for predicting its impacts and informing sustainable land management strategies. This issue is particularly relevant in drylands, which host half of the world’s livestock production and are highly vulnerable to desertification caused by overgrazing. Here we conduct a standardized field survey across 73 dryland sites in 25 countries to simultaneously evaluate how climatic, edaphic, vegetation and grazing-related factors influence ecosystem resistance—defined here as the capacity to maintain vegetation cover under increasing grazing pressure. We found that increasing grazing pressure reduced vegetation cover in 80% of sites, with an average decline of 35%. Plant species richness emerged as the strongest predictor of ecosystem resistance, with higher richness associated with lower vegetation cover loss. Functional trait data indicated that this positive effect was mainly explained by complementarity in trait values among plants, rather than by functional redundancy. Our results indicate that conserving plant diversity is key to strengthening ecosystem resistance and sustaining dryland functioning under intensifying grazing pressure.