Summary
A decline in pasture productivity is often associated with a reduction in vegetative cover. We hypothesize that nitrogen (N) in urine deposited by grazing cattle on degraded pastures, with low vegetative cover, is highly susceptible to losses. Here, we quantified the magnitude of urine-based nitrous oxide (N<sub>2</sub>O) lost from soil under paired degraded (low vegetative cover) and non-degraded (adequate vegetative cover) pastures across five countries of the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region and estimated urine-N emission factors. Soil N<sub>2</sub>O emissions from simulated cattle urine patches were quantified with closed static chambers and gas chromatography. At the regional level, rainy season cumulative N<sub>2</sub>O emissions (3.31 versus 1.91 kg N<sub>2</sub>O-N ha<s
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