CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

In this review, we brought together published results on biological interactions at different spatial scales in the Monte desert of Argentina identifying gaps in knowledge. We presented evidence on competitive and facilitative plant-plant conspecific and heterospecific interactions, plant-soil-microbes interactions and plant-herbivore interactions in relation to the abiotic environment at the fine patch-scale. At higher hierarchical levels, we showed evidence on animal-animal interactions and plant-animal interactions at the community scale through study cases involving both native and introduced herbivores. At this spatial scale, we focused our attention on bottom-up and top down forces governing the interactions between granivores (birds, ants, and small mammals) and seed availability/production. At the landscape scale, we assessed feedbacks between domestic grazers and the spatial patterns of resources within and across scales. We concluded that the knowledge on biological interactions in the Monte desert is extremely scarce at all spatial scales. Keywords conspecific and heterospecific competition, facilitation, granivory, herbivore-herbivore interaction, plant-herbivore interaction, plant patchiness.