Floristic and structural changes related to opportunistic soil tilling and pasture planting in grassland communities of the Flooding Pampa

摘要

The Flooding Pampa natural grassland has an intricate pattern of plant communities, related to small topographic differences that determine important changes in soil characteristics. Despite limitations imposed by soil properties and periodic waterlogging, opportunistic tilling is carried out to plant pastures. There is little information on how pasture planting may affect the structure of the grassland communities. In order to document changes caused by cultural activities on structural and functional characteristics of plant communities in this landscape, we made field surveys in grasslands and very old pastures (grassland communities recovered through secondary succession) using transects located across existing topographic gradients.