Livestock, antibiotics, microbes, soil quality, carbon, climate change. Although it may seem strange, they are very related to each other. Antibiotics used in treatment cattle affects soil microbes through fertilizers and destabilizes carbon stock, reducing resilience to climate change.
The warning was initiated by the authors of a scientific study conducted in India. Next to the warning is the suggestion to fix the problem with “natural climate solutions“: conservation of native herbivores And alternative livestock management.
“Grazing by large herbivorous mammals affects climatebecause it can support the size and stability of a large carbon sink in the soils of ecosystems” is the first sentence of the study led by researchers from the Ecological Sciences Center of the Indian Institute of Sciences.
“As herbivores native to the grasslands, steppes, and savannas of the world are increasingly being displaced by cattle, it is important to ask whether cattle can mimic the functional roles of their native counterparts.” This was the starting point of the investigation.
Moreover veterinary antibiotic tracesscientists have evaluated other factors that affect the quality and quantity of soil carbon, such as dead plant matter, microbial biomass And composition of the microbial community.
The authors found that cattle are often treated with antibiotics such as tetracycline, whereas veterinary care for domestic herbivores is virtually nonexistent.
Native herbivores, “healthy”
The conclusion of the study was outspoken: “Although cattle and native herbivores have remarkable similarities in traits, vary greatly in their effects.affects the carbon “retained” in the soil by both vegetation and microbial communities.
The authors tested different competing hypotheses and landscape development and soil quality with and without grazing. The result was that livestock and native herbivores were very different in the effects of all this, as well as on various soil microbial processes.
They found that the lands where the cattle were grazed contained almost three times more tetracycline residues than the lands where the native herbivores lived. The exclusion of grazing animals resulted in the disappearance of antibiotic residues.
Microbial carbon utilization efficiency was 19% lower in livestock lands. Compared to native herbivores, plant communities in areas used by livestock were much more degraded.
Namely, herbivores native to the region of India where the research was conducted, such as the yak (bovid), baral (blue goat), kiang (wild donkey), and mountain goat.healthier“For land rather than livestock, which includes cattle, goats, sheep and horses.
The presence of cattle meant less carbon ‘sequestration’ This is with vegetation meaning greater availability of this greenhouse gas in the atmosphere and therefore less resistance to climate change.
But in addition to the negative effects on plants, cattle significantly reduced their effectiveness by altering the microbial communities that ‘captured’ carbon in the soil.
“Unwanted Results”
The study, published in ‘Global Change Biology’ and conducted over a twelve-year period, Deterioration of soil quality, reduction of vegetation and microbial communities are related to veterinary antibiotics. used in cattle.
“To overcome the challenges of isolating antibiotics to minimize their potential impact on the climate, soil microbial reconstruction Those affected by farm animals can reconcile conflicting demands for food security and ecosystem services,” the authors write.
“Conservation of native herbivores and alternative livestock management are crucial to managing soil carbon stores. and to envision and achieve natural climate solutions.”
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) emphasizes that conserving organic carbon in soil helps “balance greenhouse gas emissions from human activities” from climate change, land degradation and ultimately global hunger.
However, researchers “other undesirable consequencescaused by cattle such as “accelerated evolution” antibiotic resistance“It’s a global trend,” said Sumanta Bagchi, one of the study’s authors.
While the abuse of antibiotics in livestock is a serious and growing phenomenon, there are other factors that contribute to soil carbon depletion: irrigationHE use of chemical fertilizers instead of organic fertilizer heat And precipitation and your own climate change.
Reference report: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.16600
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