One of the questions raised was whether Government has received any proposal to declare Bamboo a grass or to amend the Indian Forest Act, 1927 for changing Bamboo from tree to grass and notifying it as non-timber forest produce, if so, the details thereof.

A well-kept lawn has a special place in the hearts of many a house-proud gardener.

In experimental plant communities, relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning have been found to strengthen over time, a fact often attributed to increased resource complementarity between species in mixtures and negative plant–soil feedbacks in monocultures. Here we show that selection for niche differentiation between species can drive this increasing biodiversity effect.

Human conversion of forest ecosystems to agriculture is a major driver of global change. Conventionally, the impacts of the historical cropland expansion on Earth’s radiation balance have been quantified through two opposing effects: the release of stored carbon to the atmosphere as CO2 (warming) versus the increase in surface albedo (cooling).

Over the years, the city has lost nearly 100 species of native shrubs, trees and grasses due to various factors, including sewage contamination of water bodies, increased demand for biological oxyg

This report is unique in presenting a high-resolution dataset of biomass use, production, feed efficiencies, and greenhouse gas emissions by global livestock. This information will allow the global-change research community in enhancing our understanding of the sustainability of livestock systems and their role in food security, livelihoods and environmental sustainability.

Original Source

Scientists will call for a major push this week to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture through the use of a modified tropical grass.

Natural hybrid grass cuts water run-off by 50%, can feed livestock and resist extreme weather

The spatial organization of functional vegetation types in river basins is a major determinant of their runoff production, biodiversity, and ecosystem services. The optimization of different objective functions has been suggested to control the adaptive behavior of plants and ecosystems, often without a compelling justification. Maximum entropy production (MEP), rooted in thermodynamics principles, provides a tool to justify the choice of the objective function controlling vegetation organization.

Invasive species are regarded as one of the largest threats to biodiversity but little is known about the invasion of exotic plants into the tropical forest. The per cent grass availability in gaur (Bos gaurus H. Smith, 1827) foraging areas in three different habitats namely dry deciduous forest, moist deciduous forest and thorn forest in relation to weed category areas viz., Lantana camara invasion areas, Chromolaena odorata invasion areas, 'both weeds invasion' and 'weed-free' areas were investigated in Mudumalai Tiger Reserve between November 2003 and April 2004.

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