Grass species composition and traits
We did not reveal any effect of herbivore abundance and richness on grass community composition and the traits of the species present. The only significant result was the effect of hippo and scrub hare abundance on grass species community composition. Our expectation was that the grass community composition would be shaped either by the overall grazing pressure, manifest by the total herbivore abundance or by the abundances of individual herbivore species. The total grazing pressure induces different levels of grazing, e.g., overgrazed dry grass communities with abundant annual species such as Aristida adscensionis and Tragus berteronianus , heavily utilized grazing lawns with adapted species such as Cynodon dactylon andBothriochloa radicans , or moderately grazed veld dominated by tall competitive species such as Themeda triandra orPanicum maximum (van Oudtshoorn 2018). Different abundances of herbivore species in particular plots may lead to the suppression or facilitation of certain species and traits via grazing selectivity (Bell 1971) or sward-height specialization (Farnsworth et al. 2002), which is reflected in traits of individual grass species (Díaz et al. 2007).