ACTIVIDADES AGROPECUARIAS EN EL SUBTRÓPICO SUDAMERICANO: VARIABILIDAD DE USUARIOS Y SU IMPRONTA SOBRE EL FUNCIONAMIENTO DE LA VEGETACIÓN

BALDI, GERMÁN; HOUSPANOSSIAN JAVIER; MURRAY FRANCISCO; RUEDA, CARLA; JOBBÁGY ESTEBAN

Congreso; Cuarto Congreso Internacional de Servicios Ecosistémicos en los Neotrópicos: de la investigación a la acción; 2015

The Dry Chaco and Chiquitania ecoregions face a rapid expansion of agriculture over the dominant areas of natural and seminatural vegetation. Still preserving one of the largest extents of subtropical dry forests in the world, this transformation become noteworthy at a regional scale since the beginning of the 1990?s and no large biophysical limitations seem to constrain their establishment. The historical availability of federal lands, an ethnically and economically diverse population, governmental immigration campaigns, and a recent openness to the global market of agricultural goods, led to an exceptionally heterogeneous scenario of agricultural land users (Vázquez 2006, Killeen et al. 2008). A developing body of studies is showing the effect of deforestation and subsequent cultivation on primary productivity patterns, carbon pools and emissions, groundwater hydrology, and climate regulation (e.g. Nitsch 1995, Gasparri et al. 2008). In particular, cultivation introduces an amplification of the seasonal and inter-annual variability of productivity, apparently without changing its average magnitude (Volante et al. 2012, Baldi et al. 2013). However, little is known about the regional spatial and temporal heterogeneity of primary productivity patterns, and even less about its relationship with the diverse land management approaches performed by farmers and ranchers. Here, we (i) identify agricultural land users and characterize a series of social, operational, and productive traits from existing scientific literature and technical reports, and quantify (ii) the imprint of these groups on landscape patterns (i.e. paddock size and shape) using Google Earth high resolution imagery and (iii) their vegetation functioning using high temporal resolution MODIS spectral data.