Spatio-temporal interactions between livestock behavior and resource availability in dryland pastures: Integrating multifaceted field surveys by agent-based modeling

Abstract

We proposed a new approach to clarify the coupled dynamics between spatio-temporal variation in vegetation quantity and quality (e.g., nutrition and palatability) and livestock behavior in dryland pastures under climate change. Our approach integrates the data obtained from the following surveys by agent-based modeling: a questionnaire survey of herders’ grazing decisions, biologging to capture livestock behavior, satellite remote sensing to understand the spatial distribution of vegetation quantity, and a wide-area vegetation survey to reveal the spatial distribution of species composition. The results of applying this approach to Mongolia confirmed the effectiveness of the abovementioned surveys. Our agent-based model is being developed on the basis of the empirical data obtained.