Mediterranean shrub diversity and its effect on food intake in goats
2014
Tomislav Šarić | Jozo Rogošić | Fred Provenza | Ivan Župan | Suzana Tkalčić | Kristian Franin | Zoran Šikić | Stanko Ivanković | Nevenko Herceg
Mediterranean ecosystem offers a variety of shrubs that were over long periods of time involved in the evolution of complex plant-animal interactions. Biochemical components of these plants enter different metabolic pathways after digestion and absorption, resulting in development of dietary preferences in browsing animals. Herbivores in general were found to perform better when grazing in a mixed plant community composed of diverse species, and show preferential feeding behaviours for mixed <em>vs</em> single species diet. Our findings demonstrate an asymptotic relationship among Mediterranean shrubs species diversity and their voluntary intake by goats. Shrub biomass intake showed linear increase when number of different shrubs in diet increased from one to three. However, goats did not further increase intake when the number of shrub species increased from four to eight. As the number of shrub species offered increased, goats exhibited more preferential feeding behaviour for <em>Quercus pubescens</em>, <em>Fraxinus ornus</em>, <em>Rubus heteromorphus</em> and <em>Arbutus unedo</em> and decreased the intake of <em>Hedera helix</em>, <em>Juniperus oxycedrus</em> and <em>Helichrysum italicum</em>. This asymptotic relationship indicates that the maintenance of plant species richness in Mediterranean shrublands can overall benefit domestic goat farming, goat’s productive performance, and the conservation of plant biodiversity.
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