Is mob grazing beneficial for soil health and the environment?

替代性草原管理做法可以提高生产力，并有助于减缓气候变化。草地在为可持续发展建设土壤肥力方面发挥着重要作用，1放牧做法的操纵可能会通过提高土壤肥力和更有效的养分植物产生的更高的根沉积物-C和动物排泄物输入来增加土壤碳（C）固存。近年来，放牧草地管理作为一种提高土壤健康和碳储量的方式越来越受到农民的青睐。然而，缺乏强有力的科学证据来支持这些说法，特别是在英国的草原系统中。暴民放牧是“持续时间短，高密度放牧，比通常的草恢复期更长”，其中一大群牛定期移动，草被留下恢复40至100天2。不同生产力草地土壤碳循环速率有明显差异，在适当强度下，放牧促进根系生长，使更多的碳进入地下。确定潜在的暴民放牧增加土壤健康，C存储和预测未来的变化需要知识的生态响应和复杂的土壤过程中草地管理系统。总的来说，本项目将使用精心挑选的草地网站提供对比放牧管理制度可比土壤类型，以评估生产力，土壤健康和碳储存，养分循环和生态反应暴民放牧的做法。它将探讨放牧与传统（固定放养）草地系统在生态系统服务方面带来的好处。强大的实验室实验，使用同位素示踪剂将被设计为跟踪C流和调查对比草原管理系统内的C循环。跨学科的生物，化学和物理技术将用于全面评估对比草原系统内的土壤健康。新的调查还将测试210 Pb和137 Cs放射性同位素技术（草原土壤混合和干扰的指标）的应用，以及非破坏性（例如植物生态学，原位根和土壤结构评估）和破坏性（土壤碳，营养状况，微生物学）评估，以增加我们对这些系统中土壤过程和碳和营养储存的理解。

Alternative grassland management practices could improve productivity and help mitigate climate change. Grasslands play an important role in building soil fertility for sustainable development1 and the manipulation of grazing practices may increase soil carbon (C) sequestration through higher rhizodeposit-C and animal excreta inputs that have come about through improved soil fertility and more nutrient efficient plants. Recently mob grazing grassland management has been increasingly promoted by farmers as a way of increasing soil health and C storage. There is, however, a lack of robust scientific evidence to support these claims, particularly in UK grassland systems. Mob grazing is "short duration, high density grazing with a longer than usual grass recovery period," where a large group of cattle are moved regularly and grass is left to recover for between 40 and 100 days2. Grasslands of different productivity tend to have distinctly different rates of soil C cycling and at appropriate intensity, grazing is thought to promote root growth which puts more C underground. Determining the potential of mob grazing for increasing soil health, C storage and predicting future changes requires knowledge of ecological responses and complex soil processes within grassland management systems. Overall this project will use carefully selected grassland sites offering contrasting grazing management regimes on comparable soil types to assess productivity, soil health and C storage, nutrient cycling and ecological responses to mob grazing practices. It will explore the benefits that mob grazed vs traditional (set-stocked) grassland systems bring in terms of ecosystem services. Robust laboratory experiments using isotopic tracers will be designed to track C flow and investigate C cycling within contrasting grassland management systems. Interdisciplinary biological, chemical and physical techniques will be used to holistically assess soil health within contrasting grassland systems. Novel investigations will also test the application of 210Pb and 137Cs radioisotope techniques (indicators of grassland soil mixing and disturbance) alongside both non-destructive (e.g. plant ecology, in situ root and soil structure evaluation) and destructive (soil C, nutrient status, microbiology) assessments to increase our understanding of soil processes and C and nutrient storage within these systems.