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The breeding of ruminants in developing countries remains dependent on the availability fodder resources. The study carried out along the transhumance corridors of the Tchamba Prefecture in Togo, aims at: (i) assessing the use value, the availability, and pasture management practices; (ii) estimating the productivity and carrying capacity of pasture, and (iii) measuring the pastoral value of rangelands. It was based on the analysis of phytosociological and ecological inventories as well as individual interviews of breeders along the transhumance corridors. The most reported plants by breeders were: Andropogon gayanus Kunth var. tridentatus Hack. (100 %), Panicum maximum Jacq. (96.55%), Daniellia oliveri (Rolfe) Hutch. & Dalz (79.31%), Imperata cylindrica (L.) P. Beauv. (79.31%), and Adansonia digitata L. (72.41%). A total of 109 plant species including 53.33% trees and shrubs were identified. This flora is dominated by microphanerophytes (31.84%), and nanophanerophytes (29.78%). The mean productivity of the pasture is 2227 kg DM/ha allowing a carrying capacity of 0.33 TLU/ha/year. The fodder flora is dominated by species of average pastoral value (55%). The target pastures must be enriched with ligneous and herbaceous fodder plants in order to guarantee better animal feed and limit animals' wandering in the riparian agrarian areas, sources of farmer-herder conflicts. It is also necessary to develop watering areas for the animals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Estimates of adult body mass are usually considered as equivalent of mean population body size in most studies of ancient mammals. However, given that any population is composed in part of subadult individuals, this approach overestimates the mean population body mass and biomass. For this reason, more realistic estimates of mean population body mass should be used. In this paper, we: 1) test five different proxies of population mean mass; and 2) estimate the total prey biomass in the paleoecosystems from the Orce and Atapuerca sites as an approach for estimating their carrying capacity. Our results for past ecosystems support the use of survival profiles derived from the Weibull model (SPW), as they show values in better agreement with those of extant populations. They also estimate higher carrying capacities for the faunal assemblages of Orce than for those of Atapuerca. We suggest that the environmental conditions of Orce could have played an important role in the first peopling of Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Geotechnical Journal is the property of Canadian Science Publishing and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Canadian Geotechnical Journal is the property of Canadian Science Publishing and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Plant Science is the property of Canadian Science Publishing and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Recovery targets for threatened species are typically developed on a species- or population-specific basis. Such narrow taxonomic specificity stands in contrast with widely applied species-independent metrics of conservation status. Here, we propose a generic protocol that can be used to specify broadly applicable targets intended to recover the ecological and evolutionary functionality of threatened species. The method is based on basic density-dependent population dynamics, draws on first principles related to population growth, and explicitly incorporates habitat by accounting for changes in carrying capacity. It offers a consistently applied, methodologically transparent, and predictable biological benchmark for recovery purposes. The benefits of a generic method for articulating recovery targets, particularly from a policy- and statute-implementation perspective, are substantive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Annals of Tourism Research is the property of Pergamon Press - An Imprint of Elsevier Science and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)