Grazing lawns in Terai grasslands, Royal Bardia National Park, Nepal

We compared the community structure, nutritive quality, and aboveground bio mass of grazing lawns (patches of shortgrass communities) to neighboring gr asslands in the Terai of western Nepal. Grazing lawns differed from the adj acent grasslands in species composition and community structure. Species di versity and species richness were higher on grazing lawns (H = 1.60, S = 20 .93) than the grasslands (H = 0.97, S = 8.97). Fencing that excluded grazer s for 150 days made areas of grazing lawns indistinguishable from neighbori ng grasslands in terms of plans height and biomass. Growing shoots of forag e from grazing lawns had higher digestibility, crude protein, and sodium th an Forage from the grasslands. Grazing lawns appear to be maintained by con tinuous grazing and are enriched by deposition of urine, dung, and by certa in plant species not found in the the adjacent grasslands.