ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes a few general principles that govern the functioning of highland biota with special reference to low latitudes and provides a brief summary of observations on highland pasture systems. It presents the arena for the global change implications for biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in subtropical and tropical highlands. As a cultural heritage associated with traditional-knowledge-based land management, many of these high-elevation pasture landscapes, hayfields, marginal crop fields, and rangelands are of significant conservational and historical value. Humans have shaped much of the world’s highlands over millennia. Landscapes of sustainable productivity, high biodiversity, and aesthetic attractiveness have developed through livestock grazing. Moderate grazing tends to reduce dominance of a few species and to open space for many minor species. Heavy grazing on highly weathered soils is well known to compact the soil, reduce infiltration and increase erosion and sediment yield, and often it depauperates vegetation, with many examples from around the globe.
