Grasses in the silvopastoral systems of the southeast of Santiago del Estero (Argentina)

Abstract

Grasses play fundamental roles in primary colonization, food provision, shelter for a wide variety of animals, and anthropic activities, mainly economic ones. Santiago del Estero is one of the Argentine provinces that is part of the semiarid Chaco region and, in its rural areas, the predominant economic activities are forestry, agriculture and livestock, particularly silvo-pastoralism, which is one of the traditional productive strategies. Little is known about the diversity of grasses present in these silvo-pastoral systems and dichotomous keys are scarce for their identification. The objective of this work was to know the diversity of the most frequent grasses in the silvo-pastoral systems in southeastern Santiago del Estero and, thus, to generate a dichotomous key to identify them. After defining 18 sampling sites, three transects of 100 m were traced in each of them. Original explanatory schemes were included. The collected grasses
were classified into 22 genera and 37 species. The resulting key provides a practical tool for the identification of frequent grasses in cattle-raising areas of northern and central Argentina.