CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Driven by the pressure of increasing forage production, dry forests and woodlands of Argentina aresuffering one of the highest deforestation rates in the world. In this study we combined field work and aremote sensing approach to assess the successional trajectory in terms of functional group diversity andecosystem phenology, following roller chopping deforestation in a woodland of central Argentina. Thefirst year after disturbance, shrub cover decreased at the same proportion than grass cover increasedwhile tree cover was drastically reduced. After 3 years, shrubs recovered 70% of the original cover andgrasses maintained a relatively high proportion, but tree cover remained low. Roller-chopping favouredearly over late successional species in the case of woody plants, but had the inverse effect in the case ofgrasses. At ecosystem scale the length of the growing season was drastically shortened by 100 daysfollowing disturbance. Roller chopping improves ecosystem services of provision by enhancing forage?soffer but at the same time deteriorated the system by reducing functional plant diversity and byshortening the growing season, with potential cascade-consequences on other ecosystem processes suchas the carbon and water dynamics.