Plant communities and soil phytolith assemblages relationship in native grasslands from southeastern Buenos Aires Province, Argentina.

FERNÁNDEZ HONAINE, MARIANA; OSTERRIETH, MARGARITA; ZUCOL, ALEJANDRO

CATENA

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

Año: 2009 vol. 76 p. 89 - 96

0341-8162

This study has compared the phytolith production and soil phytolith assemblages of two native grasscommunities typical in Argentina, namely the monospecific Paspalum quadrifarium community or “pajonal”,and the Stipa-Piptochaetium community or “flechillar”. Five sites – three of which had been unmanagedwhile other two had been submitted to fire and fire-grazing management activities – were selected for study.The results show that in these sites a) phytolith production of the plant communities differed due to theirdiverse floristic composition, b) it was possible to define the type of management or the type of communitybased on soil phytolith assemblages, c) there were differences between plant communities and soil phytolithassemblages. These results suggest that modern phytolith assemblages are composed not only of local andpresent vegetation but also of extralocal/regional and probably past vegetation. Hypotheses about theprobable processes involved in phytolith incorporation to soil have emerged during the investigation