The landscapes of livestock diversity: grazing local breeds as a proxy for domesticated species adaptation to the environment

• Published in: Landscape ecology Vol. 37; no. 4; pp. 1035 - 1048
• Main Authors: Velado-Alonso, Elena, Morales-Castilla, Ignacio, Gómez-Sal, Antonio
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.04.2022; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Agricultural land; Agrobiodiversity; Animals; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Cluster analysis; Clustering; Context; Demography; Domestic animals; Domestication; Ecology; Environmental conditions; Environmental factors; Environmental Management; Geographical distribution; Grazing; Landscape; Landscape Ecology; Landscape/Regional and Urban Planning; Life Sciences; Livestock; Multidimensional methods; Multidimensional scaling; Nature Conservation; Research Article; Seasonal variations; Spatial distribution; Species; Sustainability; Sustainable agriculture; Sustainable Development; Domesticated animal; Agrobiodiversity; Livestock ecoregion; Livestock landscapes; Spanish local breed
• ISSN: 0921-2973; 1572-9761
• DOI: 10.1007/s10980-022-01429-5

Context Domesticated animals play a central role in agricultural landscapes. However, livestock has been scarcely studied from a spatial perspective. Mapping of livestock diversity has been limited by the lack of distribution and demography data. This shortfall limits both the reach of actions aimed to conserve threatened breeds and their consideration as a tool for improving sustainability in livestock landscapes. Objectives To analyse environmental drivers of local grazing livestock breed—those autochthonous to a specific region—distributions and delineate livestock ecoregions, i.e. areas where certain groups of breeds exhibit similarly response to environmental factors in their distribution. Methods We used non-metric multidimensional scaling and hierarchical clustering to explore the distribution of the areas of origin of 119 local livestock breeds of the bovine, ovine, caprine, equine and asinine species. In addition, we performed randomisations and preference index to establish livestock ecoregions. Results Our results show contrasting spatial distributions of grazing local breeds across the studied species, explained by environmental factors. The distribution of cattle breeds is determined by the temperate influence of Atlantic Ocean, while sheep breeds are related to more continental climates, especially to those of the central Iberian plateau. Goat breeds are associated with limiting factors in the context of the Mediterranean climate, such as the seasonality of precipitation, and equine breeds are adapted to particular regions, reaching areas at the environmental extremes. The partitioning of the geographic and environmental space is reflected in the livestock ecoregions. Conclusions Livestock intraspecific diversity has acted as an adaptive response of domesticated grazing animals to specific environmental conditions. Our delineation of livestock ecoregions could aid to move towards more sustainable agricultural and livestock landscapes and help in the conservation of agrobiodiversity.