Welcome to the home pages of the research project:
Ecological effects of sheep grazing
in alpine habitats (project now terminated)
Background
Sheep has the ability to utilize grass forage resources in
landscapes too
poor to use for more intensive agricultural purposes, and sheep
husbandry is a
cornerstone of the economy in many rural areas of Norway. During the
summer
months, some 2-2.5 million sheep are released onto outlying pastures in
Norway;
making it the by far most common large herbivore. Alpine habitats
constitute
about 50% of the area of Norway and has been used for grazing since the
Bronze
age. Still most of the sheep are grazing in this habitat. However, this
practice has recently become more controversial, since the sheep number
has
increased from 1920 until today, and since the ecological impact on the
ecosystem remain largely unknown.
This was the main background for initiating a unique landscape-scale
experiment (covering 2.7 km2) in year 2000 (with 3 full replicates of 3
levels
of grazing), aiming at addressing some key ecological issues related to
effects
of sheep grazing using an ecosystem approach.
Future
The project is terminated. We will of course use some time to
follow up all of the material gathered - and will continue to update
with new references in the overview of the literature.
(Prof. Øystein Holand at UMB will now continue using the
infrastructure - but the development of his project will not be
reported here)
What we were really doing? Look at our field pics from summer of 2008 and 2009 and 2010.
[27. Jan. 2012] Ragnhild
Mobæk defended her PhD-thesis at UMB on density
dependent foraging behaviour in sheep. Opponents were Rene van der
Waal and Ivar Herfindal. Congratulations!
[28. Oct.] BioForsk 2011 er klar. [21. Sept] Konferanse arrangert av DYLAN-prosjektet ledet av Gunnar Austrheim
Kort oppsummering av resultater fra prosjektet vil bli presentert av Atle Mysterud.
[21. Sept] Frokost hos Kristine (i Kristine Bonnevies hus på Univ. i Oslo)
Anna Blix will present the topic for her Master thesis based on field work in 2011. First time the project appear as a Facebook-event! [2. Sept. 2011] Sheep gathered in Hol for the last time
Field
season in Hol has ended. With this - 10 years of experimentation is
over - and 3 NFR projects ++. Soon 30 papers have been published based
on the field data collected.
[July 2011] Our study of how sheep grazing affect tree-ring growth has received quite some attention in the media. Speed, J.A., Austrheim, G., Hester,
A., and Mysterud, A. 2011. Browsing interacts with climate to determine tree
ring increment. Functional Ecology:
in press.
New York Times Forskning.no Sveriges radio Brasil[4. Nov. 2010] BeiteForsk for 2010 er ute. [4. Nov. 2010] Beiteprosjektet med Kronikk "Beitekonfliktene i fjellet" i Nationen i dag. [1. nov. 2010] Sauen holder
landskapet åpent! Det har lenge vært uklart hvor effektiv
sauen er til å holde tregrensa nede. Bjørk er ingen
foretrukket beiteplante, men småbjørk beites til en viss
grad. Eksperimentet viser nå klart at sauen selv ved relativt lav
tetthet klarer å holde rekrutteringen av bjørk nede i
områder over eksisterende tregrense. Resultatene er nå
trykt i prestisjetunge Ecology.
Speed,
J.A., Austrheim, G., Hester, A., and Mysterud, A. 2010. Experimental evidence
for herbivore limitation of the treeline. Ecology 91: 3414-3420. [20. Oct 2010] Beiteprosjektet med Kronikk "Mer aktiv beiteforvaltning" i Nationen i dag. [22. June 2010] Sheep grazing project going - for the 9th year. Sheep was released in Hol today. [17. February 2010] Landskap i endring - sluttrapport.
We have been lucky to recruit a new post doc to the project. He will work with tree-line dynamics along a
taiga-tundra ecotone. Beite på Hardangervidda [16. June 2009] Omtale av beiterapportern for Hardangervidda i Nationen.
Oppslaget, som ikke ble vist oss på forhånd, er delvis
misvisende. Kartleggingen til Rekdal et al. viser at det også
på Hardangervidda er områder hvor det er grunnlag for
å spørre om beitetrykket er vel høyt (avhengig av målsetting). Det er
altså variasjon mellom beitelag på dette punktet, selv om
vidda som sådan har relativt mye beiteressurser som ikke er
utnyttet.
[15. June 2009] Omtale av beiterapporten for Hardangervidda på forskning.no.
[27. May 2009] Yngve Rekdal, Michael
Angeloff og Johnny Hofsten har nå gjennomført en vurdering av
beitekapasitet på Hardangervidda. Rapporten kan lastes ned her. Les BeiteForsk 2009 for en rettelse av areal for Skjold beitelag.
I 2007 kom en tilsvarende rapport for Setesdal Vesthei der beitetrykket er mye hardere. [27. February 2009] PhD defense Marianne Evju
Marianne Evju defended with great success
her thesis "Sheep grazing and dynamics of alpine plants in a
landscape-scale experiment". Congratulations! She has recently (1. Jan. 2009) started as a full time researcher in NINA.
Read the main results presented on forskning.no here. [23. January 2009] Main results on density effects on habitat selection from the experiment in Hol is printed in Oikos:
Mobæk, R., Mysterud, A., Loe, L.E., Holand, Ø., and
Austrheim, G. 2008. Density dependent
and temporal variability in habitat selection by a large herbivore; an
experimental approach. Oikos 118: 209-218. [pdf]
[12. December 2008] BeiteForsk 2008
BeiteForsk 2008 er ute med info fra året som gikk. [1. November 2008]
We are in the process of hiring a PhD student connected to the NFR-project "Long-term ecological effects of
sheep grazing in alpine
ecosystems and its integration with management". The position will be in Trondheim, with joint supervision of Gunnar Austrheim, Bård Pedersen, Alison Hester and Atle Mysterud.
[18.-19. Nov. 2008] Opening conference of the research program Miljø 2015.
Atle Mysterud will present news from our project. [5. November 2008] A comparative view of sheep grazing in the North-Atlantic region.
Austrheim, G.,
Asheim, L.J.,Bjarnason, G., Feilberg, J., Fosaa, A.M., Holand, Ø.,
Høegh, K., Jónsdóttir, I.S. Magnússon, B., Mortensen, L.E., Mysterud, A., Olsen,
E., Skonhoft, A., Steinheim, G., and Thórhallsdóttir, A.G. 2008. Sheep grazing
in the North-Atlantic region. A long term perspective on management, resource
economy and ecology. – NTNU, Vitenskapsmuseet, Rapp. Zool. Ser. 2008, 3: 1-82.
[pdf][22. August 2008] Hjortedyr og husdyr.
En rapport med oversikt over "Hjortedyr og husdyr på beite i norsk utmark i perioden 1949–1999" foreligger her.
Austrheim, G., Solberg, E.J., Mysterud, A., Daverdin, M. &
Andersen, R. Hjortedyr og husdyr på beite i norsk utmark i
perioden 1949-1999. – NTNU Vitenskapsmuseet Rapp. Zool. Ser.
2008, 2: 1-123.
[August 2008] Results on how sheep affect important food plants of reindeer is now out:
Mysterud, A., and Austrheim, G. 2008. The effect of domestic sheep on forage plants
of wild reindeer; a landscape scale experiment. European Journal of Wildlife Research 54: 461-468. [March 2008] Main results on effects of plants from the experiment in Hol is printed in Oikos:
Austrheim, G., Mysterud, A., Pedersen, B., Økland, R.H., Hassel, K., and Evju,
M. 2008. Large scale experimental effects of three
levels of sheep densities on an alpine ecosystem. Oikos 117: 837-846.[17. December 2007]BeiteForsk 2007 tilgjengelig. [7. December 2007] Sheep grazing project continues
We have received funding for the project "Long-term ecological effects of sheep grazing in alpine
ecosystems and its integration with management" over the new NFR-program Miljø 2015. [29.
October 2007] Artsdatabanken med fakta-artikkel
om miljøforhold og påvirkninger for rødlistearter i
norske fjellområder. [15.-16.
October] NORA meeting in Trondheim
Gunnar Austrheim has taken an initiative to establish a Nordic network
of sheep grazing reseachers. This first meeting was very successful and
showed that this can be a valuable collaboration, putting sheep grazing
ecology into a wider perspective. Participants were from Iceland,
Greenland, Faroe islands and Norway.
From left to right: Gunnar Austrheim (Norway), Gunnar
Bjarnason (Faroe islands),
Ingibjörg S. Jónsdóttir (Iceland), Erla Olsen
(Faroe islands), Jon Feilberg (Denmark/Greenland), Atle Mysterud
(Norway), Leif Jarle Asheim (Norway), Anna
Maria Fosaa (Faroe islands), Anna
Gudrún
Thórhallsdóttir (Iceland), Øystein Holand
(Norway). Anders Skonhoft (Norway) also attended the meeting - but was
not present when the picture was taken.
[29.
August 2007] We have applied for 4 more years of funding from
Miljø 2015. Decision is expected in December. [28.
June 2007] Cover of
Ecoscience
Results from the sheep grazing project made front cover of Ecoscience
(picture taken by me). Austrheim,
G., Mysterud, A., Hassel, K., Evju M., and Økland, R.H.
2007. Interactions between sheep, rodents, graminoids and
bryophytes in an oceanic alpine ecosystem of low productivity.Ecoscience
14: 178-187. [pdf] [5.
Mars 2007]Kronikk
om sauebeiting
En populær framstilling av hva vi har lært om
økologiske effekter av sauebeiting av siste års forskning.
Nytt BeiteForsk med info om hva som har skjedd i 2006 kan lastes ned. [27-29.
November 2006]
"Landskap i endring" have a conference at Soria Moria - and we will
present latest research there.
[23. October 2006]
Summer field season is over since start of September. Grazing as
usual. 3 lambs were lost of the summer. Ragnhild Mobæk has
followed the sheep over the summer. She has also tried some new
techniques of measuring activity. New of the year is also GPS collars
on all the ewes. Lars Korslund is preparing winter field work on voles.
Quite a lot of bank voles this fall, but our main focus is the field
vole.
[20.
March 2006]
Ragnhild Mobæk has started a new PhD
project entitled "Foraging
ecology and life history of domestic sheep on
alpine ranges". She will be stationed at the UMB with
Øystein Holand and Atle
Mysterud supervisors.
[27. October 2005]
The first year of thenew project "Ecological effects of
sheep grazing and
the economy of sustainable husbandry in alpine habitats" has been
successful.
This summer we have followed sheep grazing pattern in Hol,
reanalysed the 180 permanent vegetation plots, trapped voles and
estimated the abundance of birds in line transects. We have also
started taking steps towards an integration of the results with
management, by obtaining data on sheep densities as well as satelitt
derived estimates of resource availability. We will now try to estimate
coarse scale grazing pressure, and estimate economic costs if deciding
to lower grazing pressure.
[4. July 2005]Sluttrapport for de 5 første
år nå tilgjengelig:
"Økologiske effekter av sauebeiting i høyfjellet.
Korttidseffekter."
Sauebeiting i høyfjellet har vært et kontroversielt
tema, delvis pga. manglende kunnskaper om økologiske effekter av
sauebeiting. Basert på 5 år med eksperimenter presenterer
vi nå en samlet oversikt over hva som er gjort i prosjektet ”Bærekraftig bruk
av utmark til husdyrbeiting: Økologiske effekter av sauebeiting
i høyfjellet”
over programmet Landskap i endring, Norges Forskningsråd (NFR,
prosjekt nr.
134361/720).
