Interaction of land management and araucaria trees in the maintenance of landscape diversity in the highlands of southern Brazil.

ABSTRACT: In the southern Brazilian highlands, pre-Columbian societies created domesticated landscapes through the use and management of forests, including nurse Araucaria angustifolia trees, a common conifer in these regions. Nowadays, local smallholders still use traditional practices, such as burning, to promote vegetation for cattle grazing in highland grasslands. Even though burning is normally of small extent and low frequency, such management can slow down natural forest expansion and contribute to the maintenance of grasslands, by opposing the facilitative effect of nurse araucaria trees. To comprehend the interplay between human cultural management, species interactions and the environment, it is important to better understand how these relations affect diversity and composition. Our goal w

SUBMITTER: Barbizan Suhs R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6248941 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature