RT Journal Article
T1 Estimating energy concentrations in wooded pastures of NW Spain using empirical models that relate observed metabolizable energy to measured nutritional attributes
A1 González Hernández, María del Pilar
A1 Álvarez González, Juan Gabriel
K1 Acid detergent fiber
K1 Atlantic dry heathlands
K1 Forest grazing
K1 In vitro organic matter digestibility
K1 Pedunculate oak woodlands
K1 Silvopasture
AB Wooded pastures serve as a traditional source of forage in Europe, where forest grazing is valued as an efficient tool for maintaining the diversity of semi-natural habitats. In a forest grazing setting with diverse diet composition, assessing the energy content of animal diets can be a difficult task because of its dependency on digestibility measures. In the present study, prediction equations of metabolizable energy (ME) were obtained performing stepwise regression with data (n = 297; 44 plant species) on nutritional attributes (Acid Detergent Fiber, lignin, silica, dry matter, crude protein, in vitro organic matter digestibility) from 20 representative stands of Atlantic dry heathlands and pedunculate oak woodlands. The results showed that the prediction accuracy of ME is reduced when the general model (R2 = 0.64) is applied, as opposed to the use of the specific prediction equations for each vegetation type (R2 = 0.61, 0.66, 0.71 for oak woodlands; R2 = 0.70 heather-gorse dominated heathlands, R2 = 0.41 continental heathlands). The general model tends to overestimate the ME concentrations in heaths with respect to the observed ME values obtained from IVOMD as a sole predictor, and this divergence could be corrected by applying the specific prediction equations obtained for each vegetation type. Although the use of prediction equations by season would improve accuracy in the case of a Winter scenario, using the general model as opposed to the prediction equations for Spring, Summer or Fall would represent a much smaller loss of accuracy.
PB MDPI
SN 2071-1050
YR 2021
FD 2021
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10347/38228
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10347/38228
LA eng
NO González-Hernández, M. P., & Álvarez-González, J. G. (2021). Estimating Energy Concentrations in Wooded Pastures of NW Spain Using Empirical Models That Relate Observed Metabolizable Energy to Measured Nutritional Attributes. Sustainability, 13(24), 13581. https://doi.org/10.3390/su132413581
NO The previous laboratory and field work, from which the current study was later based on, was funded by the Rural Development Agency of Galician Government (Xunta de Galicia, Spain).
DS Minerva
RD 29 abr 2026