Litter decomposition in water limited ecosystems and under grazing.

CARRERA, AL; BERTILLER, MB; SAIN, CL; LARREGUY, C; VARGAS, DN

Merida, Mexico

Congreso; Ecology in an Era of Globalization. The Ecological Society of America.; 2006

Ecological Society of America

Grazing promotes changes in the species composition of plant communities and consequently this could modify the quantity and the quality of litter that they produce. We hypothesized that the replacement of plant species induced by grazing increases the relative contribution of shrubs to the total litter, altering the chemical composition and the decomposition rates of the litter. In two contrasting vegetation conditions (areas excluded from sheep grazing and grazed by sheep) characteristics of the shrubland of Larrea divaricataand Stipa spp., we randomly collected aerial litter and fine roots (