Is the natural regeneration of native forest influenced by dairy cattle farming?

ABSTRACT

Natural regeneration takes place through young trees and small plants that inhabit the interior of forests and are essential for the ecological succession of native forests. In forestry, conducting natural regeneration is a low-cost traditional forest management technique that is very suitable for native forests. The hypothesis raised is that the floristic and the structure of the vegetation are affected in the phytosociological parameters with the presence of cattle. For this article, 180 plots (2 × 2 m) distributed in six sample blocks were evaluated. Regardless of the topographic portion in toposequence, forest fragments isolated with wire fences presented better phytosociological parameters. In forest areas with access to grazing, species tolerant to grazing and trampling by animals were common. These were thorny, with flexible branches and/or toxic and caustic substances for cattle. Thus, according to the data collected from the structure of natural regeneration, currently there are two lines of forest succession in the forest fragments. These floristic and structural differences between forests with and without cattle ranching are recommended in the sustainable planning of rural ranching properties.

Keywords
Forest ecology; Native forest; Cattle; Toposequence; Environmental planning