Chair of Livestock Systems

Grazing beef cattle in the Gran Chaco. Photo credit: Dr Pedro Fernandez, UNT, Argentina

Research Focus

Our group aims to provide scientific evidence to guide production, climate mitigation, and conservation efforts in livestock-based systems. We seek to identify innovations for landscape-level management, addressing the complex interplay between global food production, livestock industry, and environmental impacts, especially in grassland-dominated landscapes.

Key Research Areas

Grassland ecosystems & Livestock interactions

We investigate the intricate relationships between grasslands, livestock, and associated ecosystems using process-based modeling and empirical research. Our goal is to support the development of robust livestock-based systems while addressing:

Sustainable management of grassland ecosystems for livestock production
Land use changes driven by the livestock industry
Water and soil biogeochemical cycle impacts
Climate change mitigation strategies
Biodiversity conservation efforts in grazed landscapes
Restoration and enhancement of degraded grassland ecosystems

Sustainable Livestock Systems

Our research explores how livestock-based systems can evolve to meet emerging societal demands while minimizing environmental impact. We focus on:

Analysing the effects of livestock on grassland agriculture and ecosystems
Developing evidence for science-based policies in the livestock sector
Innovations through the use of digital technologies in livestock-based systems

Research Questions

How can livestock systems evolve to meet emerging societal demands?
What are the local-level tradeoffs between livestock production, climate mitigation, and ecosystem conservation?
Which landscape patterns that include livestock should be promoted to reduce environmental impacts?
What strategies can be used to restore and enhance ecosystems while maintaining livestock production?

Through our research, we aim to support evidence-based policymaking and guide the food industry towards more sustainable practices in livestock-based systems, with a strong emphasis on preserving grassland ecosystems.

Figure 1: Schematic representation of scales, systems, and components to study production and interactions in livestock systems. This multi-scale framework includes impacts of production on the environment, and on food systems.

Multi-scale Analyses

Global livestock production can be studied comparing ‘Regions’ (Fig. 1). Analysis of policy options for livestock ‘Production systems’ uses modelling and field studies, to account for the spatial variability of production, GHG emissions and impacts on ‘Landscapes’, and a description of ‘Social entities’. Production is quantified in situ and modelled for different ‘Farm types’, considering the ‘Farm’ unit and the 'Farm components'. These muti-scale analyses integrate production and economics with biogeochemical models that quantify carbon, nutrient cycles and GHG emissions. Multi-objective optimisation modelling is used with production, mitigation and conservation objectives and to identify best practices and to quantify trade-offs. Our group applies these methods for integration, upscaling and for scenario analysis.

Innovation in livestock systems

Figure 2. Simplified transitions in landscapes selected for case studies. A. Transitions from forests to crop monocultures such as the Gran Chaco, and B. Transitions of current intensive dairy systems through mixed landscapes and to forests a possible scenario for northern Europe. These stages can co-exist within livestock production systems, and landscapes offer balanced benefits and minimal trade-offs.

Our group applies systems analysis and generates novel empirical datasets for tropical, sub-tropical and alpine regions using a framework of Systems transitions, and focusing on landscape diversity. Improving the understanding of how landscape diversity supports livestock systems, and understanding the underlining factors will help bringing closer together objectives of food production, mitigation and conservation. A closer integration of livestock & agroculture will help deliver multiple benefits by using livestock and plants species that improve nutrient cycling, landscape-level carbon sequestration and to balance the GHG budget (Fig. 2).