Journal of Rangeland Science
Volume:9 Issue: 4, Autumn 2019

Enclosure and Acacia shade availability to plants are basic variable in arid and semi-arid rangelands. the aim of this study was investigation the impact of patch enclosure and Acacia shade using four treatments which are Inside Enclosure Under Acacia shade (IEUA), Inside Enclosure Without Acacia shade (IEWA), Outside Enclosure Under Acacia shade (OEUA) and Outside Enclosure Without Acacia shade (OEWA) on herbaceous species richness and soil chemical properties of rangelands in Shinile Woreda, Somali regional state. The effects of enclosures and Acacia shade were completely different. Herbaceous species richness was significantly high in Acacia enclosure. All soil chemical properties showed significance difference under Acacia shade compared to areas without it except soil pH. On the other hand, there was no significant difference for soil chemical properties between inside enclosures and the nearby open grazing areas except for soil pH which was significantly higher inside enclosures. The result of study revealed that soil pH, Organic Carbon (OC) and Organic Matter (OM) were positively correlated with species richness in all of treatments. Electro Conductivity (EC) and potassium (K) showed positive correlation with species richness only under Acacia shade inside enclosures but they were negatively correlated in other treatments. Phosphorous (P) showed positive correlation with species richness at place without Acacia shade inside and outside of enclosure. Determining the relationship between soil and plants is a useful way to better understand the ecosystem condition and can help to manage the rangeland ecosystem. The degraded rangelands can be restored by an increase of an enclosure and Acacia shade which will benefit pastoral community from it.

Assessing and monitoring rangelands in arid regions are important and essential tasks in order to manage the desired regions. Nowadays, satellite images are used as an approximately economical and fast way to study the vegetation in a variety of scales. This research aims to estimate the coverage percent using the digital data given by ETM+ Landsat satellite. In late May and early June 2018, the vegetation was measured in Ardakan plain, Yazd province, Iran. Information was obtained by 320 plots in 40 transects and also, the satellite images in terms of sampling time were downloaded and processed in USGS website. 16 indices involving NDVI, NIR, MSI, SS, IR1, MIRV1, NVI, TVI, RAI, SAVI, LWC, PD322, PD321, PD312, PD311 and IR2 were estimated. Through estimating the indices and extracting the values in order to conduct index-based predictions, six data mining models of Artificial Neural Network (ANN), the K Nearest Neighbor (KNN), Gaussian Process (GP), Linear Regression (LR), Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Decision Tree (DT M5) have been applied. Model assessment results indicated high vegetation estimate efficiency based on the indices but the model KNN with Root Mean Square Error (RMSE= 2.520) and Coefficient of determination (R2= 0.94) and (RMSE= 2.872 and R2= 0.96) had the highest accuracy in the training and data sets, respectively. As well, to determine the weight and importance of parameters, and to estimate the coverage percent, the weighing process were conducted based on support vector machine. Weighing results indicated that the KNN model and the Simple Subtraction (SS) index had higher weight and importance in terms of vegetation percent.

Plants growable in rangelands play an important role in the feeding of ruminants; hence, the nutritive value of four plants (Falcaria vulgaris, Malva neglecta, Chenopodium album, and Polygonum aviculare) was determined by different laboratory methods. The plant samples were randomly collected in vegetative phase from different rangelands of Torbat-e Jam, Iran in spring 2018. The range of dry matter (125 to 184 g/kg), neutral detergent fiber (252 to 358 g/kgDM), acid detergent fiber (155 to 258 g/kgDM), crude protein (172 to 275 g/kgDM), ether extract (9 to 41 g/kgDM), crude fiber (135 to 185 g/kgDM), ash (140 to 252 g/kgDM), acid detergent lignin (41 to 123 g/kgDM), nitrogen-free extract (300 to 496 g/kgDM), and non-fiber carbohydrates (183 to 356 g/kgDM) were different between the studied plants. The mineral composition was also different between treatments and they were containing reasonable minerals as compared to some other plants commonly used as forage feed. The highest in vitro organic matter digestibility (OMD: 876 g/kgDM) and in vitro dry matter digestibility (DMD: 828 g/kgDM) were observed in Polygonum aviculare. The other fermentation parameters (NH3-N, total volatile fatty acids: TVFA, and pH) were also different among the plant species when incubated in the laboratory medium. There was a strong positive correlation between 24 h gas production with OMD, DMD and TVFA and negative correlation between 24 h gas production with crude protein, NH3-N and ether extract. The results showed that each of the four studied plants can be considered as a potential source of feedstuff for the alleviation of problems associated with lack of forage in Iran. According to these reported data, it seems that the nutritional value of Falcaria vulgaris and Polygonum aviculare is higher than the other two plants.

Drought stress is one of the most important factors limiting plant growth all around the world. Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria (PGPR) can significantly reduce drought stress effects on plants growth. This study was aimed to investigate the influence of PGPR (inoculation by Azospirillum lipoferum, Azotobacter chroococcum, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Bacillus cereus) on seed germination, seedling growth and photosynthetic pigments of Astragalus caragana under four levels of drought stress (0, -0.2, -0.4, -0.8 MPa) in laboratory conditions in Shahrekord University, Iran, 2017. Among the four PGPR treatments, A. chroococcum was eliminated because seeds failed to germinate and were identified as agent pathogenies. The results showed that inoculation by PGPR had a significant effect on all germination traits except shoot length. The effect of drought stress was significant on all traits expect mean germination time. The PGPR by drought stress interaction effect was significant on shoot length, embryonic leaf and seedling fresh weight, embryonic leaf and seedling dry weight, and root length. The highest and lowest seed germination indices and seedling length were related to first (control and -0.2 MPa) and second (-0.4, -0.8 MPa) levels of drought stress, respectively. It was concluded that P. aeruginosa was more effective in embryonic leaf fresh weight (0 and -0.2 MPa), embryonic leaf and seedling dry weight (total levels of drought stress); B. cereus (0 MPa) and A. lipoferum (0, -0.2, and -0.4 MPa) showed relatively better performance on root length and B. cereus (0 MPa), A. lipoferum (total levels of drought stress) and P. aeruginosa(-0.2 and -0.4 MPa; total levels of drought stress, respectively) improved growth of shoot and seedling fresh weight of the Astragalus caragana.

The aim of this study was to determine the chemical composition and in vitro digestibility, and to estimate the in vitro fermentation parameters of palm leaves and pedicels from Ghars palm variety. A rumen in situ technique was also used to examine In vitro Digestible Dry Matter (IDDM), In vitro Digestible Crude Protein (IDCP), and In vitro Digestible Neutral Fiber (IDNF), and rate and extent of gas production. Vetch-oat hay was taken as a reference feed material. The samples were collected in Tolga district (southeast Algeria). The Crude Protein (CP) content of the plant species was low for pedicels and palm leaves (33 and 60 g kg−1 DM, respectively). The highest content of total extractable phenols, tannins and condensed tannins was observed in palm leaves whereas pedicels showed lower concentrations. In vitro digestibility and in situ DM disappearance were slightly different for the examined forages. Analogue trends were observed for the in vitro fermentation kinetics estimated from the gas production curves. Pedicels showed the highest DM effective degradability (ED; assuming a passage rate of 0.03 h-1) whereas palm leaves seemed to be a poorly degradable material with an ED coefficient of 0.39 and 0.14 g g-1DM, respectively. Despite the moderate CP and high fiber content along with in vitro digestibility and in situ DM disappearance found in pedicels, in comparison with vetch oat hay degradation, it indicated that this plant could have a greater nutritional value. Dry matter disappearance after 144 h of incubation was negatively correlated with phenolic compounds and total extractable tannins, suggesting that the in vitro techniques can be appropriate for detecting the presence of anti-nutritional substances in shrubs.

Ferula haussknechtii H. Wolff ex Rech.F. is an important medicinal plant belonging to the Apiaceae, family. In order to investigate the effect of Pb on the growth, chemical composition of essential oil and accumulation of metals in this species, a pot study was conducted under glasshouse condition. Seeds were collected from natural rangelands of Lorestan province, Iran in summer 2016. Seeds were tested for dormancy breaking and were sown in total 12 of 5 kg plastic pots.After 120 days, when the plants grew to about 10 cm, the plants were exposed to three different lead nitrate [Pb (NO3)2] concentrations of control (0), 2 and 4 mM (as Pb1, Pb2 and Pb3), respectively. The results revealed that the shoot length decreased by 5.2 and 28.9% with the application of 2 and 4 mM lead respectively as compared to the control. The maximum value for the survival rate was obtained in Pb1 treatment. The Root Concentration Factor (RCF) and Translocation Factor (TF) values were all less than the desired unit. The essential oil percent decreased by 21 and 39% with the application of 2 and 4 mM lead nitrate, respectively, as compared to the control. According to the results of GC-MS, a total of 36 compounds were detected in the essential oils of F. haussknechtii. β-Eudesmol (10.8%), camphor (13.8%), γ-eudesmol (8.7%), α-pinene (5.9%), myrcene (8.9%) and caryophyllene oxide (8.2%) were the main constituents of the essential oil of F. haussknechtii. It was concluded that addition of lead nitrate affected the constituents of the essential oil of F. haussknechtii and this plant is not appropriate for phytoremediation or phytoextraction purposes.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the biodiversity ofplant associations in On Ebn-e-Ali Mountain in Tabriz and its relationship to various biodiversity indices. Four plant associations including 1) Noaea mucronata- Poetum bulbosa, 2) Noaea mucronata- Brometum tomentellus, 3) related to bush form as well as Poeto bulbosa-Brometum tomentellus and4) Brometo danthonia - Brometum tomentellus related to grass form were recognized using Braun-Blanquet and cluster analysis methods in the study area. The biodiversity of different plots was measured based on Richness, Dominance, Evenness, Equitability, Shannon-Weiner, Simpson, Menhinick, Margalef, Fisher's alpha, Brillouin, Berger-Parker and Chao-1 indices in 2017. Associations of 4 and 1 with 19.25 and 14.25 had the highest and lowest richness values, respectively. All of biodiversity variables had strong correlation with the first axes of Principal Component Analysis (PCA). The PCA axes 1 and 2 accounted for 90.8% and 6.2% of the total variation, respectively. The results indicated that high plant diversity in Brometo danthonia- Brometum tomentellus (association 4) was due to the high degree of evenness and in Poeto bulbosa- Brometum tomentellus (association 3) caused by the high degree of richness. However, high degree of dominance in Noaea mucronata- Poetum bulbosa and Noaea mucronata- Brometum tomentellus (associations 1 and 2) had led to reduction of their biodiversity. The results showed that there were 75 species belonging to 65 genera and 30 families and 62, 12 and 1 species belonged to dicotyledons, monocotyledons and gymnosperm, respectively. Lamiaceae, Poaceae, Asteraceae, Brassicacea, Caryophyllaceae and Papilionaceae families comprised 59% of plant species in the study area.

Phytoremediation is an efficient approach that uses plants to remediate the polluted environments.The aim of this research was to evaluate phytoremediation ability of Artemisia aucheriin the contaminated soil to Cadmium, Lead, Zinc and Nickel. A greenhouse experiment was performed to investigate the effect of Municipal Solid Waste Compost (MSWC) on phytoremediation efficiency of A. aucheri in 2017. For this,natural soil samples were taken from polluted soils of the rangelands around National Iranian Lead & Zinc Company-Zanjan, Iran. Then, MSWC with 0, 1, and 2 wt. was mixed with soil samples. Then, 4 kg pots were filled with this soil and seeds of A. aucheri were sown. After 6 months in the end of the experiment, plant samples were collected and shoot and root dry weights were measured and contents of Cd, Pb, Zn and Ni were estimated. To investigate the capability of A. aucheri to uptake and accumulate metals, the factors of Translocation Factor (TF) and Bio-Concentration Factor (BCF), and Remediation Factor (RF) were determined. The results indicated MSWC 2% uptake maximum Cd and Ni values in roots (80.80 and 10 mgkg−1, respectively) and shoots (65.60 and 6.28 mgkg−1, respectively) of the A. aucheri. Plants grown in pots treated with MSWC 2% had lower values of Pb in roots (3955 mgkg−1) and shoots (24.40 mgkg−1) as compared with control. Thus, it was concluded that A. aucheri can be an accumulator for Cd and Ni in the contaminated soils amended with MSWC. In contrast, usage of MSWC has been indicated to immobilize Pb and Zn in the soil. In general, A. aucheri can be used in raised phytoremediation Pb, Cd, Zn and Ni in the polluted soils. Evaluation of A. aucheri potential, however, needs future research of the impact of MSWC in the field conditions.

Rangelands are the main source of forage production whose degradation is being accelerated due to improper utilities. Furthermore, re-vegetation of palatable plants like Vicia variabilis is more limited in overgrazed rangelands. The objective of this study was to improve degraded rangelands in Meleh-Kabud (Kermanshah, Iran) through planting Vicia variabilis. The research was conducted at experimental plot scale using split plot comprising treatments of season and method cultivations. Treatments included Planting time and methods with three replications with seeds collected in the study area. Seeding seasons comprised early spring and early autumn, but seeding methods were row seed sowing and broadcast seeding. Data collection was carried out for sprouting and establishment during two years. Rate of shooting appearance was evaluated in the first year (2016), while plant survival rate assessed in the second year (2017). Results indicated planting seasons affect both shooting and survival rates for Vicia variabilis. Furthermore, early spring season was found more suitable. Shooting and survival rates through row seed sowing were 20.00 and 13.83%, respectively. In contrast, these respective rates via broadcast seeding were reduced to 2.67 and 1.17 percent. We concluded that row sowing in early spring was the optimal method for rangelands in Kermanshah province.