Farah Ben SalemInstitut des Régions Arides | IRA
Farah Ben Salem
Doctor of Engineering
Researcher; Ecology, Biodiversity, Climate change, Range Land management
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32
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Introduction
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Publications
Publications (32)
Increases in the abundance of woody species have been reported to affect the provisioning of ecosystem services in drylands worldwide. However, it is virtually unknown how multiple biotic and abiotic drivers, such as climate, grazing, and fire, interact to determine woody dominance across global drylands. We conducted a standardized field survey in...
Mineral-associated organic carbon (MAOC) constitutes a major fraction of global soil carbon and is assumed less sensitive to climate than particulate organic carbon (POC) due to protection by minerals. Despite its importance for long-term carbon storage, the response of MAOC to changing climates in drylands, which cover more than 40% of the global...
Perennial plants create productive and biodiverse hotspots, known as fertile islands, beneath their canopies. These hotspots largely determine the structure and functioning of drylands worldwide. Despite their ubiquity, the factors controlling fertile islands under conditions of contrasting grazing by livestock, the most prevalent land use in dryla...
Simple Summary
In pastoral farms, understanding the productivity of local goat milk is crucial; however, comprehensive data on complete lactation and the factors affecting lactation curves are limited. Our study aims to model local goat lactation curves and explore the factors affecting the parameters of individual lactation curves. The observed lo...
The aim of this study is to establish linear measurements of local goat kids at birth and their factors of variation, as well as their possible correlations with birth weight. Additionally, the study analyses statistical models and barymetric functions to predict birth weight of kids based on their morphometric data. The database includes data on 1...
La population caprine locale est une ressource génétique adaptée à l’élevage pastoral des régions arides. L’intégration agro écologique de l’élevage caprin fournit au cheptel les conditions d’intensification de la conduite du cheptel élevé en stabulation. Le mode de gestion zootechnique et économique du troupeau, dans ce système d’élevage fixe, doi...
Le présent travail vise à évaluer les performances laitières de la chèvre locale et leurs facteurs de variation. La base de données regroupe le suivi de 34 chèvres du troupeau caprin expérimental de la station d’El GORDHAB. Les résultats montrent qu’en général, la production laitière par traite journalière des chèvres locales allaitantes est 620g/j...
Grazing represents the most extensive use of land worldwide. Yet its impacts on ecosystem services remain uncertain because pervasive interactions between grazing pressure, climate, soil properties, and biodiversity may occur but have never been addressed simultaneously. Using a standardized survey at 98 sites across six continents, we show that in...
Grazing represents the most extensive use of land worldwide. Yet its impacts on ecosystem services remain uncertain because pervasive interactions between grazing pressure, climate, soil properties, and biodiversity may occur but have never been addressed simultaneously. Using a standardized survey at 98 sites across six continents, we show that in...
The study aims to study the impact of environmental factors on adult weight and assess the impact of their use from a genetic point of view to set up the basis for the future improvement of this important component of efficient production. A total of 3000 records of 104 goats were collected over a period of 3 years in the caprine herd of the Arid A...
In order to estimate some equations of daily milk production from linear body measurements of 85 local lacting goats were used in the present study. The morphostructural parameters included body length, withers height, heart girth and hip height, the body weight and the daily milk were recorded weekly from from the 7th postpartum day up to the end...
The short-term fencing effects on vegetation in dryland landscape depressions are analyzed and the economic performance of grazing-only and integrated grazing with cropping in regard to land capital are compared. The goal is to suggest efficient strategic choices and more profitable land allocation of lowlands in dry areas. To analyze the vegetatio...
The e-workshop consists of a keynote plenary session and four thematic sessions that address the connections between pastoralism and sustainable development: (1) environment, ecology and ecosystem services; (2) society and culture; (3) economy and finance; and (4) policy, institutions and governance. The keynote speeches addressed trends and challe...
The degradation of arid rangelands is mainly caused by overgrazing. Fencing is considered as a key management aspect to restore these ecosystems leading to changes in vegetation and soil structure. However, it depends on intensity and duration of protection. The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of long-term fencing (more than 25 years)...
Citation: Louhaichi, M.; Gamoun, M.; Ben Salem, F.; Ouled Belgacem, A. Rangeland Biodiversity and Climate Variability: Supporting the Need for Flexible Grazing Management. Sustainability 2021, 13, 7124. https:// Abstract: Resting or grazing exclusion is an effective practice widely adopted to restore degraded, arid rangelands. To understand its eff...
Long-term protection of arid ecosystems changes the vegetation and soil structures. The quantification of aboveground biomass and carbon content are among the principal indicators to evaluate these changes. Most methods used to quantify these parameters are costly, time consuming and destructive. In this paper, two non-destructive methods were comp...
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the benefits of reintroducing traditional grazing systems practices for improving arid rangelands. Grazing is the most extensive land use in southern Tunisia, but the rangelands have suffered many decades of severe degradation due to profound socioeconomic changes and the emergence of an agro-pasto...
In recent decades, pre-Saharian Tunisian consequences of desertification have gradually become a major environmental problem. We are witnessing the continuous degradation of natural vegetation, due to various human activities. These activities often lead to overgrazing, due to the decline in the size of the course (after cultivation) and increased...
Plant biomass is usually assumed to be positively correlated with canopy cover. Measurements of canopy cover can now be easily and precisely made through image processing of high-resolution digital photography. This study aims to determine rapid, accurate and non-destructive ecological measurements of the aboveground biomass of selected plant speci...
Actual physiognomy of natural vegetation communities in southern Tunisia results from long dynamic during many decades. Besides the influence of climatic instability, human pressure greatly amplified the degradation process of the vegetation cover. This study aims to show the evolution of the natural vegetation in the governorate of Medenine betwee...
The restoration technique importance resides on the assessment of its impact on biodiversity. This assessment is possible by the use of some environmental indicators extracted from a diachronic study of land cover changes in protected areas. Our study is carried out with the evaluation of some indicators inside Sidi Toui national park. These indica...
La zone présaharienne de la Tunisie est caractérisée par des conditions climatiques très contraignantes à la survie des végétaux (pluviométrie très faible et très irrégulière, températures élevées, évapotranspiration très intense…). Cependant certaines zones bio-géomorphologiques gardent encore des conditions plus ou moins favorables à l'existence...
Water points provide excellent sites for studying overgrazing effects on plant communities in dry areas. Distance from water can be considered like a surrogate of grazing pressure being high near the water and low away from it. The main aim of this study is to investigate overgrazing effects on acceptability of fodder plants along a grazing gradien...
In Tunisia, Artemisia herba-alba Asso. is a very common steppe species of the natural rangelands. It is also well known as an aromatic and medicinal species. In spite of its adaptation to the difficult ecological conditions (xeric soils, aridity⋯), the natural habitats of Artemisia in Tunisia have obviously regressed these last years due to its ove...
Grazing of the first year reseeded rangelands by palatable species is often proscribed. However, total protection may often lead to persistent weed problems and is hard to accept by land users keen to graze reseeded land as soon as possible. The present study aims at testing the case of reseeding arid Mediterranean cereal fallows with native palata...
The present study deals with the assessment of the effects of drought on the natural plant cover of two natural regions of Southern Tunisia. Several parameters and indicators have been used to describe the evolution of plant communities and their fate under the different constraints and disturbances effect. The main achieved results show that relat...