Abstract
Grasslands provide a number of ecosystem services that have been essential to human well-being since pre-historical times (Gibson 2009). Yet they also represent the most endangered terrestrial biome due to conversion into agricultural systems (Sala 2001). The grassland biome covers 15 million km2 (11 %) of the Earth’s surface with non-woody vegetation, excluding deserts and savannas (Sala 2001). Natural grasslands encompass vast regions including the North American Great Plains, the Eurasian steppes of Russia, China and Mongolia, and the South American Pampas (Gibson 2009).
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Acknowledgements
We are most grateful to Professor Rolando León for inspiration and discussion, and Randall Myster for the invitation to contribute to this volume. We thank the National Parks Administration of Argentina for permission to work at El Palmar, and the staff of Estancia San Claudio for logistic assistance. Our research is partly funded by Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica (FONCYT), Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas (CONICET), and Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBACYT grant scheme).
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Chaneton, E.J., Mazía, N., Batista, W.B., Rolhauser, A.G., Ghersa, C.M. (2012). Woody Plant Invasions in Pampa Grasslands: A Biogeographical and Community Assembly Perspective. In: Myster, R. (eds) Ecotones Between Forest and Grassland. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3797-0_5
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