The case for burning rangeland pastures for sustainable livestock production

In many temperate, mesic rangelands relied upon for livestock grazing, spatially-patchy prescribed fire has been recommended as a means to enhance the delivery of ecosystem services (i.e., pollinator resources, wildlife habitat diversity) with no net loss to commercial livestock production. Here I present several lines of evidence suggesting patch-burning has direct benefits to sustainable rangeland livestock production in addition to advancing conservation objectives on commercial rangelands. Fire-driven benefits include higher nutritive value of post-burn forage, including higher mineral concentrations; better animal weight gains; and increased plant-available nitrogen with little change to soil microbial communities.