Complexity in agricultural landscapes maintains biodiversity of insects, birds, plants and soil biota. Grasslands and pastures are particularly important for biodiversity because they provide large, unique areas of habitat, that are much less disturbed than cropland. In 2004, a five-year study was begun in Truro, Nova Scotia into managing dairy cattle pasture for biodiversity. One component of the study is looking for complementary grass mixtures to improve pasture yield and conservation of soil mineral nitrogen. Another experiment has created a multi-habitat pasture with intensive defoliation, conventional defoliation, and lax defoliation management of the pasture sward. Botanical diversity was decreased by lax defoliation, but only on more productive paddocks in the pasture. Plant residue decomposition in the soil was dominated by fungi under lax defoliation, and bacteria under intensive defoliation. Using dairy cattle to create this multi-habitat pasture had no significant effect on cow health or milk yield. On a broader scale, a life-cycle assessment compared the environmental impact of milk production from cows confined year-round to cows pastured for five months of the year. While the two systems were similar in impact, a movement to less reliance on high-energy feed and more pasture is suggested.