2026/01/01 by Fumito Koike, Masayo Isozaki · 1 voice
Environmental Science · #Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies #Species Distribution and Climate Change #Animal Ecology and Behavior Studies
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/1440-1703.70030
openalex publication_date 2026/01/01 · openalex created_date 2026/01/02 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/22
ABSTRACT Ungulates have become dominant and changed natural ecosystems in the modern era. They browse or graze unevenly on palatable plants, causing a shift to the vegetation of unpalatable species. Ungulate palatability is a key plant trait in the plant community assembly process. The browsing pressure at a site can be defined as the threshold palatability value between browsed and unbrowsed plants at the site, and it should be used for ungulate population management to conserve endangered and culturally important plants and to maintain regeneration of forests with palatable trees. Estimation of palatability and browsing pressure is a key technique for ecosystem management. We compared four methods to estimate palatability based on browsing scar surveys and estimated palatability for 195 plant species from boreal to warm‐temperate zones in Japan. A browsing pressure map for planning regional ecosystem management was also constructed based on the estimated palatability. The four methods examined produced similar results, although simple logistic regression caused outliers for extremely palatable and unpalatable plants. The type of survey data restricts the applicable method; the species‐to‐species comparison matrix method accepts broad data types. In contrast, the distance likelihood and Bayesian logistic regression methods require a countable number of examined plants. The plant species listed in the results can serve as indicator species for determining browsing pressure in field surveys. These methods for estimating palatability and browsing or grazing pressure will contribute to future plant community studies and advances in ungulate management.