India (Commonwealth Union) – Grazing animals are believed to play a crucial role in balancing the ecosystems. A 16-year research program conducted by the Centre for Ecological Sciences (CES) and the Divecha Centre for Climate Change (DCCC), Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru (IISc) have confirmed this by finding that large mammalian herbivores such as the yak and ibex have vital roles in stabilizing the pool of soil carbon in grazing ecosystems like the Spiti region located in the Himalayas.
The study involved the removal of grazing by herbivores from these ecosystems indicated an elevation of the fluctuations in the level of soil carbon, which can have an unintended downside for the carbon cycle across the world.
As soil consists of greater carbon than all plants and the atmosphere together, its continuation is essential. When plants and animals die, dead organic matter accumulates in the soil for lengthy periods before microbes decompose it and release carbon into the environment as carbon dioxide.
“The soil pool is a reliable sink for trapping carbon,” said Sumanta Bagchi, Associate Professor at CES and senior author of the study published that appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Continuing stability with carbon levels in the soil is hence vital in offsetting the effects of climate change.
Associate Professor Bagchi initiated his work on the impact of grazing animals on Himalayan ecosystems for his PhD in 2005. With backing from the Himachal Pradesh state government, local authorities, and persons of Kibber village in Spiti, saw the establishment of fenced plots, which kept out animals together with plots in which animals like yak and ibex grazed. Over the following 10 years, the team gathered soil samples from the region and analyzed their chemical components, monitoring and comparing the quantities of carbon and nitrogen for each plot year after year.
