Small mammals called plateau pikas are often treated as pests for competing with livestock for food, but research from China shows they can improve the quality of vegetation for grazing yaks.
The study, published previously as a Reviewed Preprint in eLife and appearing today as the final Version of Record, is described by eLife’s editors as important. They say the findings, based on convincing evidence, provide new insights on reciprocal relationships between small mammals and large herbivores, and will be of interest to livestock and rangeland managers.
Pikas, voles, prairie dogs, pocket gophers, and other small herbivores are both consumers and ecosystem engineers in many grassland areas. Through their feeding, clipping, and burrowing behaviours, they profoundly alter vegetation and soil properties, with potential effects on large herbivores that co-exist with them.
“In rangelands and other less productive ecosystems, small mammals are often considered pests because their population outbreaks can lead to competition with livestock for food. However, it remains unclear whether their competitive effects on livestock diminish or even help livestock growth when their numbers are at lower, non-outbreak levels,” says co-first author Zhiwei Zhong, Professor of Ecology at the Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, China. “Livestock grazing currently uses around 77% of global agricultural land and sustains billions of people worldwide. A critical assessment of small mammals’ impacts on livestock production is therefore urgently needed to guide management for both production and biodiversity conservation.”
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