Livestock grazing may indirectly affect bird species that need large shrubs to build their nests, in an arid ecosystem. Nest abundance decreased with the reduction in vegetation structure by grazing, leading also to the construction of smaller nests. Domestic livestock may indirectly affect native plant-associated species, affecting their reproduction and demography.

Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes are an innovative solution to reduce rangeland degradation. This study aimed to design a PES framework emphasising soil and water conservation functions and discussion of challenges facing implementation of the framework. Our findings appear useful for policy-making to balance utilisation pressure in arid and semiarid rangelands.

Nitrogen and phosphorus are two of the many constituents in animal faeces, and each have significant biological roles with respect to living organisms and ecosystems. Near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is a non-invasive, non-destructive method used to determine faecal constituents. The results of this study indicate that NIRS calibrations derived from multiple grazing animal species may be applied to determine faecal nitrogen across the species studied and that similar calibrations for faecal phosphorus require further development. Relatively rapid assessments of faecal nitrogen and phosphorus will facilitate real-time monitoring for pollution mitigation, precision application of soil amendments, livestock supplemental feeding, or wildlife habitat evaluation.

Knowledge of land degradation is a key tool to manage fragile arid ecosystems. Here we examine whether a satellite-based spectral diversity index can detect rangeland grazing gradients, and found that it to be a better indicator than traditional vegetation indices in differentiating degraded from non- degraded areas. Therefore, we suggest this index for the analysis of health and function of arid rangelands.