Mogamat Igshaan Samuels

Agricultural Research Council, South Africa | ARC · Animal Production Institute

Pastoralists in Namaqualand, South Africa, use herd mobility to manage livestock and rangeland resources. However, their socioeconomic conditions and ecological landscapes are changing and we explore the options that are available for pastoralists to respond to these changes. This paper presents five possible scenarios for managing livestock in ran...

In this paper the use of fenced grazing camps to manage the rangeland commons is challenged. A historical perspective is presented on fencing and rotational grazing in South Africa. Two case studies in KwaZulu-Natal and the Northern Cape illustrate the factors that influence the management of rangelands under communal land tenure without the use of...

In South Africa, interventions in communal rangelands proposed by most agriculture-sector institutions are still dominated by the belief that communal herders have little technical skills and by the tenets of “the tragedy of the Commons”, assuming that individual livestock keepers are selfish, norm free, and aiming at maximising short-term offtake...

Brachiaria forages are known to be drought-tolerant as mature plants, but no information about drought tolerance at the seed germination stage is currently available. This study aimed to determine the impacts of different temperature and moisture conditions on the seed germination characteristics of five Brachiaria genotypes. Brachiaria seeds were...

Climate change has brought about credible changes in arid landscapes which have resulted in further challenges for pastoralists who require good quality rangeland resources to sustain their livestock. This study assessed local level coping and adaptive management strategies by pastoralists in Namibia and South Africa using a capital assets approach...

The aim of the study was to evaluate the potential of implementing hydroponic fodder system in the drylands of South Africa. Therefore, we assessed the effects of irrigating barley with borehole, municipal, nutrient solution and distilled water on its quantity and nutritional quality under hydroponic system for green forage production. The seeds we...

Important metapopulation dynamics are disrupted by factors such as habitat loss, climate change, and human-induced mortality, culminating in isolated wildlife populations and threatening species survival. Source populations, where birth rates exceed mortality and connectivity facilitates dispersal, contrast with sink populations, where mortality ou...

Namaqualand Granite Renosterveld is a fire-prone shrubland in South Africa and is dominated by Elytropappus rhinocerotis, an indigenous unpalatable shrub with encroaching properties. Using vegetation surveys, the study aimed to understand the effects of fire and grazing on the cover, density and plant species associations with E. rhinocerotis. Plan...

Brachiaria grasses are well-known for their high biomass production and forage quality. These grasses are drought tolerant as mature plants, but no information about drought tolerance at seed germination stage is currently available. This study aimed to determine the impacts of different temperature and moisture conditions on the seed germination d...

As climate change intensifies, increased rainfall variability and extended periods of droughts has been experienced within the Namaqualand region of the Northern Cape of South Africa. This has resulted in increased periods of feed shortages for livestock that are entirely dependent on the natural veld for their daily feed requirements. This, in tur...

Rangelands in South Africa, Lesotho, and Eswatini contain a rich diversity of valuable fodder trees and shrubs. This research is the first attempt to document the regional diversity and distribution of these browse resources. Scientific publications, textbooks, databases, and published reports were accessed to compile a database of plant species th...

Study area : The study was conducted in the Tankwa Karoo National Park, one of the driest areas in South Africa. Historic overgrazing has resulted in the poor and often degraded state of vegetation in large parts of the Tanqua Karoo region. Aim : This study assessed the spatial variation of vegetation structure and composition in the three main veg...

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) recognises transhumance pastoralism as a beneficial livestock production system that can contribute to food security together with economic and political stability. Thus, the subregional bloc put together the ECOWAS Protocol on Transhumance and supporting regulations to actualise these benefits...

Communal rangelands in South Africa are generally perceived as overgrazed owing to complexities in their histories and collective utilisation which often leads to improper management. A suitable solution has not been found in land management policies because local people’s contexts and their indigenous knowledge are ignored. Hence, this paper is ai...

Calobota sericea is being evaluated as a forage for drought stressed areas. The nutritional quality of C. sericea from native populations are poor, and this is believed to be due to poor soil fertility. Therefore, a greenhouse trial was established to determine the impact of N-fertilization level (0, 25, 50, 75 and 100 kg/ha) on the growth and nutr...

Climate change in the Mediterranean-like regions of South Africa has resulted in increased rainfall variability, a delayed start to the wet winter season, and increased occurrences of out-of-season summer rainfall events. These changes in bioclimatic conditions are predicted to become more pronounced and, therefore, could result in poor seedling es...

Abstract Background Atmospheric CO2 may double by the year 2100, thereby altering plant growth, photosynthesis, leaf nutrient contents and water relations. Specifically, atmospheric CO2 is currently 50% higher than pre-industrial levels and is projected to rise as high as 936 μmol mol−1 under worst-case scenario in 2100. The objective of the study...

Calobota sericea (Thunb.) Boatwr. & B.-E.van Wyk (Fabaceae) is a native legume from the semi-arid rangelands of South Africa. The species has been prioritised as a forage for water-limited agro-ecological areas. No information regarding the nutritional quality of C. sericea forage harvested at different phenological stages is currently available, l...

A consistent fodder flow in water-limited rangelands remains a challenge for resource-poor farmers. Calobota sericea is currently being evaluated as an alternative drought tolerant fodder resource for these areas. The nutritional quality of C. sericea fodders from native populations are poor and this is believed to be due to poor soil fertility. To...

Extensive droughts and irregular rainfall caused by the climatic change phenomena has an enormous negative impact on the fodder flow system of livestock farmers in the arid and semi-arid regions of South Africa. In the winter rainfall regions, the fodder gap in summer was to a certain extent filled by either exotic planted pastures, which require h...

Woody plants are important sources of food for livestock and game in semi-arid to arid regions as well as a vital source of highly nutritious feed in many other parts of southern Africa. The SA-National Forage Genebank, mandated to collect and conserve valuable forage seed, initiated an inventory study of known indigenous fodder trees and shrubs. T...

Translocations are commonly employed to mitigate human–carnivore conflict but rarely evaluated, resulting in conflicting reports of success, particularly for leopards (Panthera pardus). We evaluate the status of available leopard translocation data, the factors driving the intentional removal of leopards, and the potential causal factors associated...

The harsh environmental conditions coupled with a long history of overgrazing have altered the ecology of the arid Tanqua Karoo rangelands in South Africa, which necessitates rehabilitation. However, a suitable method for monitoring rangeland function over time is required for sustainable management. In this study, vegetation characteristics and la...

Arid rangelands have been greatly affected by climate change and the people occupying these landscapes have become increasingly at risk by this phenomenon. This study explored the climate vulnerability and risks to an indigenous Nama community n South Africa. A household survey was conducted to understand the diversity and extent of the climate ris...

The spatial heterogeneity of vegetation in a communal grazing system provides pastoralists with a range of grazing sites to select for their livestock. When fencing spatially constrains herds, there is reduced access to ecological heterogeneity, which may have a negative impact on livestock and the grazing resource. This study investigated temporal...

Islands of fertility (IOF) emerge when vegetation exerts such a considerable influence on soil properties that sub-canopies become significantly more fertile than inter-canopies.How confounding phenomena such as grazing patterns, seedbank dynamics and temporal changes impact IOF, has not been thoroughly examined. Soil and vegetation characteristics...

This study aimed to provide preliminary information regarding the nutritional quality of Calobota sericea, a preferred perennial legume forage species from the water-limited rangelands of South Africa. Calobota sericea plant samples were collected from the Namaqualand rangelands in the wet and dry season and analysed for secondary compounds, fibre,...

This study aimed to assess the nutritional quality of the available forage species during a drought in an arid pastoral system in South Africa. Forage biomass was collected during the wet and dry seasons whilst following livestock herds consisting of boer goats, swakara sheep and mixed breed sheep, in both the summer and winter rainfall regions of...

The Namaqualand region in South Africa is part of the richest arid biodiversity hotspot in the world. Plant distribution and diversity here are impacted by various biophysical and anthropogenic factors. In these landscapes, poisonous plant patches, which pose serious threats to livestock, are widespread but their contribution to the regions biodive...

Calobota sericea is a native legume of South Africa, confined to the water-limited rangelands, and it has recently been prioritised for additional characterisation regarding its pasture potential. In this study, we examined the growth characteristics of C. sericea under glasshouse conditions where water limitation was implemented at different plant...

Annual Medicago and Trifolium species form important components of pasture-crop rotations in the Western Cape. However, the predicted climate change scenarios for these production areas can significantly affect the productivity of these cropping systems. This study was conducted to quantify seed germination responses of medics and clovers to temper...

Calobota sericea has been identified as an alternative fodder species for the semi-arid agro-ecosystems of Namaqualand in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa. In these Namaqualand rangelands, C. sericea was shown to form an important part of the fodder flow plan of communal farmers within the Leliefontein communal rangelands of South Africa....

The recently developed walking ethnography, or go-along method, to study pastoralists in a participatory manner provides data that the usual sit-down interview is unable to realise, not least because it shifts the power dynamic between researcher and researched. The herder’s practice takes place outside — a mobile activity that is best understood o...

Fabaceae plants contribute greatly to a high quality of pasture in rangelands, because of high levels of protein in their tissues. Despite this established importance, only a few southern African legumes have been evaluated for nutritional value and domestication. The Overberg renosterveld vegetation of the Fynbos biome occupies undulating landscap...

Agriculture is an essential production system used to feed the growing human population, but at the same time has become a major driver of biodiversity loss and environmental degradation. Employing production methods that restore degraded landscapes can have a positive impact on biodiversity, whilst improving food production. We assessed how mammal...

Legislation and policy are key tools used by governments to change the socio-economic and political landscape of agrarian systems with consequences for mobile pastoralism. This study used the social-ecological systems framework to examine how pastoral mobility in the semi-arid, montane communal rangeland in South Africa adapted to the changing soci...

Global change in its various expressions has impacted the structure and function of ecosystems worldwide, compromising the provision of fundamental ecosystems services and creating a predicament for the societies that benefit from them. Restoration ecology plays a key role in securing ecological integrity and societal wellbeing, and hence represent...

The Tankwa Karoo National Park (TKNP) is part of a renowned arid biome with unrivaled diversity in succulents. The park has been subject to anthropogenic pressures such as heavy grazing with climate change a recent threat. This study investigated changes in vegetation productivity between 2000 and 2014 across six vegetation types using rainfall and...

Desertification deteriorates the landscape functionality of rangelands, affecting the resilience of biome boundaries and this has a cascading effect on vegetation and animal communities. This study aimed to assess landscape functionality along the biome boundary of two arid biomes and its relationship to small mammal assemblages. The study further...

The limited grazeable size of renosterveld vegetation in the Western Cape warranted assessment of chemical and fibre composition of the species to determine their nutritive value. We hypothesised that Fabaceae has chemically superior palatable species relative to Poaceae, Asteraceae and Asparagaceae species in the area. Plant samples were collected...

Calobota sericea is a perennial legume species from South Africa that has the potential to be implemented as a fodder crop in water-limited agro-ecosystems. Very little is currently known about how future climate change scenarios may influence the bioclimatic niche of C. sericea and how this, in turn, may influence its agronomic potential. In this...

The most important annual pasture legumes cultivated in the Western Cape Province of South Africa are annual Medicago and Trifolium species. These species however, are not native to the Western Cape and therefore, different cultivars of these species introduced into these agro-ecological areas first need to be tested for their ability to adapt to s...

Semi-arid to arid areas are prone to droughts which are frequent occurrences in South Africa’s rangelands. Drought can trigger plant species compositional changes in rangelands thus influencing the availability and quality of forage for livestock. The availability and quality of forage drives livestock production, especially among pastoralists who...

Access to good-quality forages is one of the major limitations to livestock production in semi-arid pastoral systems. This study aimed to determine whether there are differences in the nutritional quality of diets selected by herded and free-ranging goat and sheep flocks utilising Namaqualand Granite Renosterveld vegetation during the wet and dry s...

Inselbergs are regarded as ‘islands of diversity’ due to the high number of plant species present and level of endemism. They also act as natural sources of fodder for livestock and thus risk becoming homogenised in a heavily grazed rangeland. The aim of this study was to compare plant diversity on inselbergs and matrices in heavily grazed sections...

Parasites could possibly be the largest threat to livestock production. They lower overall productivity and the health of herds and in doing so reduces the potential economic benefit to farmers and rural communities. There are a number of factors that lead to disease susceptibility and heightened response, this would include but are not limited to...

Calobota sericea is a perennial legume species from South Africa that has the potential to be implemented as a fodder crop in water-limited agro-ecosystems. Apart from dormancy breaking requirements, no information regarding the germination and seedling establishment requirements of C. sericea is currently available. Therefore, the aim of this stud...

Globally, several carnivore species have been implicated as livestock predators, these ranging in body size from the mongoose (Herpestidae) (e.g. Minnie, 2009) to the tiger Panthera tigris (Gusset, Swarner, Mponwane, Keletile & McNutt, 2009; Van der Merwe, Avenant & Lues, 2009a) and bears (e.g. Li, Buzzard, Chen & Jiang, 2013). However, medium-size...

Very few soil seedbank studies have been conducted in South Africa, especially in arid rangelands. Insight into the soil seedbank could therefore improve assessment of rangeland dynamics and enhance rehabilitation efforts. This study aimed to characterise the soil seedbanks in various vegetation types of the Tankwa Karoo National Park, an arid envi...

The landscape functional analysis (LFA) is a methodology integrating both abiotic and biotic factors to assess landscape health. Along the arid biome boundaries in South Africa, biome boundaries have been projected to shift or remain stable under future climate scenarios. However, we know that boundary shifts could also be a function of land use in...

Pastoral systems are regarded as complex social-ecological systems with components that interact and change over a range of spatial and temporal scales. As such, herd mobility has traditionally been used to respond to the dynamic nature of these systems. However, mobile pastoral systems around the world are becoming more constrained and increasingl...

Recently, the ARC prioritized a number of native legume species for further evaluation as forage crops within water-limited agro-ecosystems. Within this selection, a number of Indigofera and Lessertia species were prioritized. Very little information regarding the climate adaptation of these species is currently available, and therefore, it is impo...

Pastoral areas around the world, including South Africa, are resource poor and external development interventions to improve conditions have largely been unsuccessful. It has been advocated that the focus should shift from external stakeholders to local pastoralists by incorporating the latter’s landscape ethno-ecological knowledge (LEEK) in future...

Inselbergs are regarded as ‘islands of diversity’ due to the high number of plant species present and level of endemism. They also act as natural sources of fodder for livestock and thus risk becoming homogenised in a heavily grazed rangeland. The aim of this study was to compare plant diversity on inselbergs and matrices in heavily grazed sections...

In the face of climate change, identification of forage species suitable for dryland farming under low rainfall conditions in South Africa is needed. Currently, there are only a limited number of forage species suitable for dryland farming under such conditions. The objective of this study was to identify and prioritise native legume species that c...

Native forages have been proposed as a plausible alternative to the use of exotic forage germplasm due to their adaptation to the surrounding bioclimatic and edaphic conditions, and the reduced risk of becoming weedy or invasive. Calobota sericea and Lessertia frutescens are two perennial legume species from the semi-arid rangelands of Namaqualand...

Importance of inselbergs in the face of desertification in arid ecosystems.

Understanding indigenous knowledge that pastoralists possess regarding the environmental and climate change is very important for the agricultural sector in arid Namibia and Southern Africa. Thus, the integration of indigenous and scientific knowledge is important for better planning and decision-making among southern African pastoralists. This stu...

Understanding indigenous knowledge that pastoralists possess regarding the environmental and climate change is very important for the agricultural sector in arid Namibia and Southern Africa. Thus, the integration of indigenous and scientific knowledge is important for better planning and decision-making among southern African pastoralists. This stu...

This study evaluated the nutritional quality of the available forage plants occurring in the Namaqualand Granite Renosterveld vegetation type in the Kamiesberg uplands of the Leliefontein communal area, South Africa. The edible portions of various forage plants were collected in the wet and dry seasons in 2012 and 2013 after which the nutritional q...

Following a field campaign to determine the species composition, canopy cover, aboveground annual production and leaf area index (LAI) of the semi-arid savanna of north-western Namibia, we present a production model that can be used by graziers to determine the livestock carrying capacity. The model predicts the annual aboveground net primary produ...

The Leliefontein communal area in Namaqualand is grazed by mixed species herds that have multiple benefits for pastoralists. This study assessed how the management (herding and free-ranging) of different livestock herds affects their feeding ecology during the wet and dry seasons in a semi-arid shrubland. By using direct observations of livestock g...

In order to meet the growing demand for livestock products in South Africa (SA), livestock production has to increase in areas with marginal climatic conditions. Currently there are few, if any, commercially available forage legume species suitable for dryland livestock production in areas that receive less than 300 mm of annual rainfall in SA. The...

In arid and semi-arid environments, pastoralists use herd mobility to manage resource variability. We investigated temporal mobility patterns of livestock keepers on the spatially confined commons of Namaqualand, South Africa, between 1997 and 2006. We conducted semi-structured interviews with about 300 livestock keepers from ten villages in the Le...

The aim of this study was to determine the effect of drought on grazing patterns of livestock in a communal rangeland in Namaqualand. Water points were the foci of almost all grazing routes even after the drought, and the areas away from the water points were less heavily utilized. The mountains could be regarded as key resource areas for livestock...