Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Annual herbaceous vegetation is a crucial source of forage for pastoral livestock in the Sahel region. These species grow during the wet season, which coincides with the peak grazing period. Understanding the impact of disturbances on annual herbaceous vegetation is then essential. This study focuses on the temporal aspects of disturbance. In northern Senegal, we established nine different plots and cut them weekly during the wet season and returned to each plot at the end of the season to create a gradient of cutting dates. We measured the plant’s phenology, height, dry biomass, and fodder quality. Our results indicated that vegetation growth occurs in three phases: establishment, growth, and flowering. The impact of cutting varied across these phases. Plots cut during the establishment phase exhibited vegetation characteristics similar to those of uncut plots. Plots cut during the growth phase had reduced vegetation height but all individuals completed their growth cycle. Plots cut during the flowering phase had significantly lower biomass at the end of the season and experienced a slight delay in phenological development and increase the quality of the fodder at the end of the season. These findings highlight the importance of cutting timing on vegetation dynamics.
Authors: Taugourdeau, Simon, Diatta, Ousmane, Ndiaye, Ousmane, Diatta, Sekouna, Diouf, Abdoul Aziz, Habibou Assouma, Mohammed, Salgado, Paulo, Bastianelli, Denis
Institutions: Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement, Institut National de Recherche pour l'Agriculture, l'Alimentation et l'Environnement, Systèmes d’élevage méditerranéens et tropicaux, Institut Sénégalais de Recherches Agricoles, Cheikh Anta Diop University, Centre de Suivi Ecologique
Language: English
Subfield: Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDGs: Life on land, Zero hunger
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7107867257
FWCI:
Cites:
Cited by:
Related to: