Kangaroos (Macropus spp., Osphranter spp.) are the most ubiquitous free-ranging herbivores in Australia. Much has been written on their impacts on plant community composition and how they interact with livestock, particularly in extensive rangelands. Little is known, however, about how kangaroos affect soil function and their relationship with healthy soils, nor the impact of peri-urban populations of kangaroos where they might come into conflict with humans. To address this, we used exclosures to examine the impacts of low densities of kangaroos on the morphology of the soil surface in a peri-urban environment on the outskirts of Sydney, Australia. We found that kangaroo grazing was associated with reduced herbaceous biomass and cover, and biocrust cover, and surfaces were generally more stable, had a greater cover and incorporation of litter and had greater plant species richness compared to inside the exclosures. There were no differences in indices of nutrient cycling nor stability. Overall, our study supports the notion that kangaroo grazing, at the current low densities experienced in this peri-urban reserve, has had no significant deleterious effect on soil surface health, as measured by the morphology of the surface. We conclude that grazing at the current low levels (˜70 kangaroos km⁻²) is unlikely to have major long-term negative effects on soil surface condition.

中文翻译：

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低强度的袋鼠放牧对土壤健康有很大的好处

袋鼠（Macropus spp., Osphranterspp.) 是澳大利亚最普遍的自由放养食草动物。关于它们对植物群落组成的影响以及它们如何与牲畜相互作用，特别是在广阔的牧场中，已经有很多文章。然而，人们对袋鼠如何影响土壤功能及其与健康土壤的关系，以及它们可能与人类发生冲突的城市周边袋鼠种群的影响知之甚少。为了解决这个问题，我们使用围栏来检查袋鼠的低密度对澳大利亚悉尼郊区城市周边环境中土壤表面形态的影响。我们发现袋鼠放牧与草本生物量和覆盖率以及生物地壳覆盖率降低有关，并且表面通常更稳定，与围栏内部相比，具有更大的覆盖和垃圾掺入量，并且具有更大的植物物种丰富度。养分循环指数和稳定性指数均无差异。总体而言，我们的研究支持这样一种观点，即在这个城市周边保护区目前的低密度下，袋鼠放牧对土壤表面健康没有显着的有害影响，如通过表面形态测量的那样。我们得出的结论是，在目前的低水平放牧（~70 袋鼠公里⁻² ) 不太可能对土壤表面状况产生重大的长期负面影响。