3.1 Forest and vegetation cover
The dominant tree species among the study sites were Araucaria araucana and Nothofagus obliqua. Even though both conditions best fitted a lognormal distribution closely followed by a gamma distribution (S. Material 1), the dominance of small-diameter trees in both stands suggests that both stands suffered the same relatively recent disturbance event (logging and clearing for grazing) (Newton, 2007). However, the number of young individuals (<10 cm BHD) is considerably higher in the controlled grazing condition, which fits a negative exponential distribution better than OG, which highlights an adequate regeneration and more stable growth in the controlled grazing sites (Donoso et al., 2014b) (Figure 2).
The differences between tree coverage between both conditions can be visualized in the study area’s land cover classification (Figure 3). The OG condition tree coverage was 28%, while the CG was 45.5 (a 17.5% higher). Though these sites did not show a relevant difference in the percentage of bare soil, they displayed differences on the shrubs and herbs cover, where the OG site almost doubled the CG site (44.2 versus 24%).