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%).