Fred Provenza

• PhD
• Professor Emeritus at Utah State University

Once a species reliant on nature for food, medicine, clothing, and shelter, Homo sapiens is in the process of being consumed by the fossil fuel-based agricultural and technological economies that enabled warming climates, natural disasters, and the sixth mass extinction. These economies, based in competition rather than cooperation around natural r...

The foods we eat reveal the nature of our relationships with the places where we live. In this first of 3 papers, I highlight how the “taste of a place,” or terroir, enables animals to meet their needs for nutrients and self-medicate by learning to eat nourishing combinations of foods in utero and early in life and by metabolically mediated flavor-...

The viability of large herbivore populations in the face of climate change, environmental variability, disease and predation will be determined by their freedom to assess and respond to these factors through access to a range of functional seasonal resources and habitats. Their responses will be contingent upon various organismal traits, such as bo...

A contribution to the Domestic Animal Diversity forum of FAO (DAD-Net). We argue that there is no universal meaning of crossbreeding.The Euro-American tradition of crossbreeding focuses on the genotype and aims at maximising performance in optimal conditions or despite the natural environment. The approach developed within pastoral systems, focuses...

Conventional agriculture production, although proficient in feeding an expanding human population, is having negative environmental impacts that are diminishing the sustainability of natural resources. Producers and consumers are increasingly interested in understanding how land management practices can enhance agricultural sustainability and impro...

There is wide scale concern about the effects of red meat on human health and climate change. Plant-based meat alternatives, designed to mimic the sensory experience and nutritional value of red meat, have recently been introduced into consumer markets. Plant-based meats are marketed under the premise of environmental and human health benefits and...

Grazed pastures are susceptible to N loss from urine/manure additions, which increases eutrophication, affecting the global N cycle. Plant secondary metabolites (PSM), such as condensed tannins (CT) and terpenes, influence silviculture soil dynamics by generally decreasing N mineralization. We investigated whether cattle‐grazed pastures of non‐trad...

Several people from Academia, industry, private laboratories, Regional Environmental Protection Agencies (ARPAs) and members from Italian National Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA) attended a recent meeting entitled “First meeting of applied ecotoxicology” (21th November 2019, Livorno-Italy), in which a section was devoted...

Global change is posing new threats to agroecosystems. First, climate modifications in the spatial and temporal distribution of rainfall increase the risks of severe droughts during the growing season of most crops. Second, conventional agriculture has led to the extension of mono-crop fields that decreased biodiversity in agroecosystems; it is pos...

Considering the failure of nonlethal means to protect herds against wolves in France—more than 1,000 animals killed per year over the past 10 years; 12,000 total losses in 2017—researcher Michel Meuret and colleagues recommend targeted and lethal regulatory actions, despite the strictly protected status of wolves.

For addressing potential food shortages, a fundamental tradeoff exists between investing more resources to increasing productivity of existing crops, as opposed to increasing crop diversity by incorporating more species. We explore ways to use local plants as food resources and the potential to promote food diversity and agricultural resilience. We...

Plant secondary metabolites (PSM) may increase the sustainability of agriculture systems by reducing inputs, as PSM protect plants against herbivores and pathogens, act as pesticides, insecticides, and anthelmintics while also attracting pollinators and seed dispersers. Therefore, it is important to understand what affects PSM fluctuation in plant...

BACKGROUND: A mixture of plant species adds biochemical diversity to pastures that may enhance productivity while decreasing reliance on herbicides and insecticides. All plants contain secondary metabolites (PSMs) that interact in plant communities in a variety of ways. Our objective was to determine if PSM diversity enhanced food intake when sheep...

The availability of different forages varies across landscapes, but little is known about how proportional consumption of different foods affects food intake and the use of landscapes. The relative amounts of nutrients and plant secondary metabolites (PSM) consumed by herbivores may influence forage intake and animal fitness in landscapes dominated...

In grazing systems, forage availability is a function of herbivore density, which can influence an animal's ability to be selective. In turn, the influence of food availability on selectivity has the potential to influence plant biodiversity. We hypothesized that the ability of herbivores to mix toxin-containing foods in their diets is a function o...

Mimicry has been suggested as a grazing avoidance mechanism for plants. This study examined the ability of a mammalian herbivore to generalize conditioned flavor aversions (CFAs) to determine if the conditions for plant mimicry exist. Nine sheep (treatment group) were averted to cinnamon on ground rice while an additional 9 sheep (control group) re...

Typescript (Xerox copy). Thesis (Ph. D.)--Utah State University. Dept. of Range Science. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 120-129).