Management of grassland/savannas encroached by woody plants in South American Semiarid Chaco: Ecological restoration vs. African grasses introduction

In Semiarid Chaco, two management approaches for woody plant-encroached grassland/savannas were evaluated: ecological restoration and the African grass introduction. An experiment with five treatments was carried out: 1) reference community (Ref_Eco; a grassland/savanna in good state, used as standard of comparison); 2) encroached by plants (Woody_Encr; state grassland/ savannas); 3) roller chopping ecosystem, followed grazing suppression prescribed fire (Roll_Fire; aimed at inducing restoration); 4) instantaneous seeding Megathyrsus maximus cv. Gatton Panic (Roll_Gatton Panic), 5) Cenchrus ciliaris Buffel Texas (Roll_Buffel Texas). The last to obtain new highly productive grassy states ranching through introduction these grasses. results suggested that Ref_Eco (average herbaceous biomass [HERB]=7196.9 kg DM/ha) dominated shade intolerant tolerant grasses, it had soil quality utilitarian range condition. Regarding Ref_Eco: a) Woody_Encr (HERB=2192 DM/ha), vegetation structure, plant composition condition altered, but still abundant native populations; b) Rol_Fire (HERB=6591.6 both structure restored, not restored kept, c) Roll_Gatton Roll_Buffel (HERB=10972.1 7450.8 DM/ha, respectively) resulted integrated exotic grasses quality. this study case, ecosystems would be ecologically productively viable. So, probably improve necessary.