The impact of livestock grazing on the evapotranspiration-vegetation biomass relationship in a Southern Hemisphere salt marsh, Buenos Aires (Argentina)

Abstract

Among the ecosystem services provided by salt marshes is the use of their natural vegetation as pastures for livestock production. As a result, the prediction of biomass productivity can be of great interest for the sustainable management of these environments. Evapotranspiration is one of the variables most used to estimate the yield of green biomass in pastures and crops, which to date has not been examined for natural environments such as salt marshes. We studied the aboveground biomass and species cover variability for two categories (erect and sward plants) in three plots affected by low, moderate, and high cattle grazing. Erect biomass was associated only with Spartina densiflora while for sward plants it gathered a diverse set of prostrate and stoloniferous species with high seasonal turnover. The evapotranspiration was estimated with a coupled surface resistance?Penman-Monteith model developed for these environments. The biomass of the plant categories shows different growth response according to livestock impact. S. densiflora has a slow-growing response after cattle consumption, even with high evapotranspiration. On the other hand, sward plants respond with biomass overproduction to livestock consumption, and a significantly positive relationship to evapotranspiration rate.