Grassland ecology articles from across Nature Portfolio

Inorganic fertilization reduces plant biodiversity. Here, the authors conduct a global meta-analysis on the use of organic and inorganic fertilizer in croplands and grasslands, showing that while both fertilizers increase plant biomass, only organic fertilizer increases biodiversity.

Grazing has been shown to have diverse effects on soil carbon, with local variation. This study assesses carbon changes related to grazing globally and finds that, although grazing has reduced soil carbon stocks, managing intensity could increase carbon uptake in both soils and vegetation.

Sara Middleton explains how automated image segmentation can be used to rapidly identify objects and regions of interest to enable the monitoring of vegetation changes.

Zero-deforestation policies are reducing the loss of tropical rainforest to oil palm expansion, but spatial analyses indicate that this may cause unintended large-scale loss of biodiverse grasslands and dry forests unless protections are extended under certification agreements.

A field study investigates three different routes by which plant litter and soil microbiomes can disperse.

African savannah grasslands initially proliferated in the late Miocene due to declining atmospheric CO₂, rather than previously proposed regional climate drying. Supplanting previous woodland vegetation due to photosynthetic adaptations, these grasslands set the stage for subsequent mammalian evolutionary trends on the continent.