Monitoring grazing practices and stocking rates for sustainability
Healthy grasslands and shrublands imply continuous system function, even while producing a product.Whole system responses are difficult to measure and present a management challenge. Response is the ongoing integration of information across all levels or organization - cells and organs to organisms to social and physical environments. Managers must find a way, beyond expensive measurements, to monitor the sustainability of different management practices and uses. Periodic measurements provide little adaptive-feedback information to the land manager. Mangers need tools that remove the uncertainty associated with any management practice or choice ofstocking rates. The questions is, "what can be managed and what are the controllers of the processes that give a system response?" The manager needs system feedback on time scales of days to weeks. The information must be robust and not subject to differences in seasons, years, sites, or technicians. The cost must be low and the time investment small. Predictions of response must be certain. Properly chosen, indicators of response disclose the corrective plan of action.
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