At the very least bison need to be rotated with cattle on at least every five years at least and ideally every other year. Even better we need to adopt controled grazing for both. That has started with cattle and this has enhanced pasture yields hugely.
A really good start would be the building of buffalo fairways that act as guide-ways across country in order to optimize and fully restore the native habitat. Such fairways would allow. A moving bison herd to pass through the country while local cattle herds occasionally share pasture.
To make it really practical, we need to learn how to properly communicate mind to mind to allow the herds to understand our intent. From this item the benefits are pretty obvious.
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Bison: The American Prairie’s First Farmers
http://modernfarmer.com/2016/09/bison-prairie/?
"Mother earth never attempts to farm without live stock," said the British agriculturalist Sir Albert Howard,
often considered the father of the modern organic farming movement. For
millennia, bison were effectively the farmers of North America’s vast
interior grasslands, maintaining a delicate ecological balance that
supported a rich diversity of plant and animal species.
Most importantly, bison made sure the
prairie stayed a prairie, rather than reverting to forest, which offers
little to eat for such large herbivores. Grazing—along with fires (both
naturally-occurring and intentionally set by native peoples)—are the
two forces of nature that conspire to manage grasslands the world over.
While cattle and other domesticated
livestock are often used often used to manage grasslands in other parts
of the world, bison appear to be the species best-suited to
controlling the North American prairie that they’ve coevolved with. In
fact, a 1976 experiment
in South Dakota demonstrated that bison are the prairie’s go-to: Cattle
were grazed on one side of a fence and bison on the other side.
Ponderosa pines soon sprouted and grew into a canopy on the side with
the cattle, while the bison chomped down on the seedlings as they
sprouted on their side and prevented a forest from becoming established.
Grasslands once comprised 40 percent of the North American landscape, but after bison were hunted nearly to extinction in the 19th
century, the prairies of the heartland were converted to farms and
cities on a vast scale: 99 percent of tallgrass prairie and 68 percent
of mixed-grass prairie have disappeared, making grasslands North
America’s most endangered ecosystem. As the keystone species
of the prairie—that is, the one who holds it together for all the other
species—bison are being actively reintroduced to conservation areas
throughout the Midwest in an effort to bring degraded prairie ecosystems back to life. Here are five ways they do it.
1. They’re living tree removers
Not only do bison munch out tiny seedlings of trees as they appear, they take care of any that begin to mature
and threaten to shade out the grass. They have several methods for
doing so: Bison like to eat bark, often leaving trees girdled at head
height; with the bark stripped, trees can no longer transport water and
nutrients to the canopy, and quickly die. A similar effect occurs when
bison rub against mature trees to help remove their winter coat, as well
as from “horning”—a common bison behavior where they rub their horns
against the bark of conifers to cover them in sap, presumably as a form
of insect repellent.
2. Their grazing keeps grass healthy
Ecologists have found
that prairie grasses produce about one third more new vegetation each
year than what actually decomposes. If all of that decaying grass was
left in place, it would form a thick thatch, restricting the germination
of small-seeded plants and the exchange of gases in the soil,
conditions which favor woody species over grasses (that’s why we have to
mow, aerate, and de-thatch our lawns to keep them healthy).
Historically, periodic fires would burn off some of the excess thatch,
though bison played an important role in consuming top growth in the
grasslands, keeping much of the biomass below ground in enormous root
systems—which is why Midwestern soils are so fertile.
3. They’re better than a fertilizer factory
Nitrogen, the most essential nutrient for plant growth, is delivered to grassland plant communities
in copious quantities through the urine and feces of bison. Without
grazing, much of the nitrogen contained in grassland plants volatilizes
and is lost to the atmosphere as new top growth dies and decays each
year, rather than returning to the soil. Grassland fires also volatilize
nitrogen as the vegetation burns. But when bison and other grazers eat
grass, the nitrogen is concentrated through the digestive process, and
eliminated out the other end in a stable form that plants can make use
of.
4. Bison promote biological diversity
Bison are considered preferable over cattle for managing America’s grasslands,
in part because they are picky eaters. While cattle graze on pretty
much anything in sight, bison have a strong preference for grasses over
forbs (broad-leafed species, including wildflowers and herbaceous
plants). Grasses thrive on periodic grazing, whereas forbs are more apt
to die out when subjected to grazing. Only a handful of native grasses
comprise most American grasslands, but upwards of 400 species of native
forbs are responsible for the tremendous biological diversity of these
ecosystems, which bison help to encourage by not eating them.
5. Where bison roam, other wildlife follows
By managing vegetation, bison effectively manage the habitat for a majority of other prairie wildlife. The Wildlife Conservation Society
estimates that 42 native bird species are dependent on grasslands
historically maintained by bison, virtually all of which nest in the
ground hidden from predators in the mosaic patchwork of grass. Prairie
dogs, another icon of America’s grasslands, take up residence
in “bison lawns”—areas routinely cropped by these enormous
herbivores—as they can better keep watch for predators than in the
taller grass of ungrazed areas. In an ecological ripple effect, the
underground “towns” of burrowing prairie dog packs, are known to provide habitat for an additional 200 species.
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