The objective of this work was to identify responses of grassland vegetation, described by species and plant functional types, to different grazing intensities. In order to describe the vegetation, 0.25 m² quadrats were used in the spring and summer. Vegetation description involved identification and cover-abundance estimation of the species in each quadrat. Each species was described by 21 macro-morphological qualitative and quantitative attributes. Data analysis aimed at identifying functional types as a subset of attributes that maximized the congruence r(D; D), between the variation of the vegetation (matrix D) and of the forage available (matrix D). Ordination revealed plant functional types that, concerning cover-abundance, responded more clearly to this factor. Multivariate analysis of variance with randomization testing was used to compare the vegetation composition, as described by plant functional types, among the forage available levels, and significant differences (P = 0.002) were observed. The differences were not significant when vegetation was described by the species composition. The use of plant functional types is more effective to detect the result of grazing intensity than the use of species composition.
environment; morphological traits; forage; grassland management
