ABSTRACT

This chapter presents grassland species diversity to different rangeland conditions and the main environmental and socioeconomic factors. It discusses in Palccoyo, in the high-elevation grasslands of the Andes, puna, Southeastern Peru, looking at the impact of grazing intensity on range conditions and plant diversity in the upper-Andean grasslands. In the high-elevation grasslands of the Andes, known as the puna, extensive grazing land areas have been utilized by rural farmers for over 10,000 years. The puna has a distinct vegetation type that is found predominantly in Andean Peru, but extends into adjacent areas such as Bolivia, north of Chile, and northwestern Argentina. To assist in determining the range condition class for a range site, plant species are grouped as decreasers, increasers, based primarily on the response to grazing intensity. The bofedales range sites showed a greater number of graminoid species than semiarid range sites, whereas semiarid range sites showed a greater number of Gramineae species than bofedales range sites.