ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2022
Loss of grazing by large mammalian herbivores can destabilize the soil carbon pool.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
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8 citing papers in PubMed.
- Mislabeled and Misunderstood: Large Mammal Distribution Underscores Ecological Significance of Agro-Pastoral "Wastelands" in India's Deccan Peninsula.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Temporal changes in soil carbon and nitrogen in response to grazing management and vegetation cover in south-eastern Australia.PloS one · 2026Article
- Large mammalian herbivores influence the deployment of microbial extracellular enzymes to control soil carbon cycling.Biogeochemistry · 2026Article
- Seasonal Sheep Grazing Does Not Enhance Stable or Total Soil Carbon Stocks in a Long-Term Calcareous Grassland Experiment.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Assessing contemporary Arctic habitat availability for a woolly mammoth proxy.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Mammal traits and soil biogeochemistry: Functional diversity relates to composition of soil organic matter.Ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- Mammal and tree diversity accumulate different types of soil organic matter in the northern Amazon.iScience · 2023Article
- Loss of grazing by large mammalian herbivores can destabilize the soil carbon pool.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
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3 authors.
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Abstract
Grazing by mammalian herbivores can be a climate mitigation strategy as it influences the size and stability of a large soil carbon (soil-C) pool (more than 500 Pg C in the world's grasslands, steppes, and savannas). With continuing declines in the numbers of large mammalian herbivores, the resultant loss in grazer functions can be consequential for this soil-C pool and ultimately for the global carbon cycle. While herbivore effects on the size of the soil-C pool and the conditions under which they lead to gain or loss in soil-C are becoming increasingly clear, their effect on the equally important aspect of stability of soil-C remains unknown. We used a replicated long-term field experiment in the Trans-Himalayan grazing ecosystem to evaluate the consequences of herbivore exclusion on interannual fluctuations in soil-C (2006 to 2021). Interannual fluctuations in soil-C and soil-N were 30 to 40% higher after herbivore exclusion than under grazing. Structural equation modeling suggested that grazing appears to mediate the stabilizing versus destabilizing influences of nitrogen (N) on soil-C. This may explain why N addition stimulates soil-C loss in the absence of herbivores around the world. Herbivore loss, and the consequent decline in grazer functions, can therefore undermine the stability of soil-C. Soil-C is not inert but a very dynamic pool. It can provide nature-based climate solutions by conserving and restoring a functional role of large mammalian herbivores that extends to the stoichiometric coupling between soil-C and soil-N.
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