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Questions: Disturbances change the fundamental properties of grasslands on different spatio‐temporal scales. Uruguay is part of the Río de la Plata grasslands, and 60% is occupied by native grasslands dominated by perennial species. In plant communities dominated by tall tussock grasses, patchy and asynchronous field burns are a traditional practice among ranchers. We asked: how do the structural characteristics of vegetation vary in patches with different time since the last fire? Location: Grassland of the Eastern Hills, Uruguay. Methods: We selected 18 grazed sites in order to obtain a spatial chronosequence with four age categories since the last fire: 6, 18, 30, and more than 60 months before sampling. Plant composition, species richness, coverage of each species, bare soil, and standing dead biomass were determined in plots of 25 m2. We used non‐metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) and the multiresponse permutation procedure (MRPP) to determine differences in community composition, and the ANOVA or the Kruskal–Wallis test to compare structural variables between patches of different burning ages. Results: Patches of different burning age had different species compositions. Species richness, Shannon diversity index, evenness, and bare soil decreased, whereas plant coverage, standing dead biomass, and vegetation strata increased as time since the last fire increased. Conclusions: Our study confirmed occasional and localized field‐burns as major driver of vegetation change and structural diversity in a grazed native grassland dominated by a tall tussock grass. On a larger scale, we observed the coexistence of patches in different successional stages and differences in species composition between patches belonging to early stages. These grasslands require asynchronous burning of patches to generate structural changes that maximize both the spatial and temporal heterogeneity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The commercial release of genetically modified organisms (GMO) requires a prior environmental and human/animal health risk assessment. In Brazil, the National Biotechnology Technical Commission (CTNBio) requires a survey of the area of natural occurrence of wild relatives of the GMO in the Brazilian ecosystems to evaluate the possibility of introgressive hybridization between sexually compatible species. Modern sugarcane cultivars, the focus of this study, derive from a series of hybridization and backcrossing events among Saccharum species. The so-called “Saccharum broad sense” group includes around 40 species from a few genera, including Erianthus, found in various tropical regions, particularly South-Eastern Asia. In Brazil, three native species, originally considered to belong to Erianthus, were reclassified as S. angustifolium (Nees) Trin., S. asperum (Nees) Steud., and S. villosum Steud., based on inflorescence morphology. Thus, we have investigated the potential occurrence of gene flow among the Brazilian Saccharum native species and commercial hybrids as a requisite for GMO commercial release. A comprehensive survey was carried out to map the occurrence of the three native Saccharum species in Brazil, concluding that they are sympatric with sugarcane cultivation only from around 14°S southwards, which precludes most Northeastern sugarcane-producing states from undergoing introgression. Based on phenology, we concluded that the Brazilian Saccharum species are unable to outcross naturally with commercial sugarcane since the overlap between the flowering periods of sugarcane and the native species is limited. A phylogenomic reconstruction based on the full plastid genome sequence showed that the three native Saccharum species are the taxa closest to sugarcane in Brazil, being closer than introduced Erianthus or Miscanthus. A 2-year study on eight nutritional composition traits of the 20 main sugarcane cultivars cultivated in Brazil was carried out in six environments. The minimum and maximum values obtained were, in percent: moisture (62.6–82.5); sucrose (9.65–21.76); crude fiber (8.06–21.03); FDN (7.20–20.68); FDA (4.55–16.90); lipids (0.06–1.59); ash (0.08–2.67); and crude protein (0.18–1.18). Besides a considerable amount of genetic variation and plastic responses, many instances of genotype-by-environment interaction were detected.

The commercial release of genetically modified organisms (GMO) requires a prior environmental and human/animal health risk assessment. In Brazil, the National Biotechnology Technical Commission (CTNBio) requires a survey of the area of natural occurrence of wild relatives of the GMO in the Brazilian ecosystems to evaluate the possibility of introgressive hybridization between sexually compatible species. Modern sugarcane cultivars, the focus of this study, derive from a series of hybridization and backcrossing events among Saccharum species. The so-called " Saccharum broad sense" group includes around 40 species from a few genera, including Erianthus , found in various tropical regions, particularly South-Eastern Asia. In Brazil, three native species, originally considered to belong to Erianthus , were reclassified as S. angustifolium (Nees) Trin., S . asperum (Nees) Steud., and S. villosum Steud., based on inflorescence morphology. Thus, we have investigated the potential occurrence of gene flow among the Brazilian Saccharum native species and commercial hybrids as a requisite for GMO commercial release. A comprehensive survey was carried out to map the occurrence of the three native Saccharum species in Brazil, concluding that they are sympatric with sugarcane cultivation only from around 14°S southwards, which precludes most Northeastern sugarcane-producing states from undergoing introgression. Based on phenology, we concluded that the Brazilian Saccharum species are unable to outcross naturally with commercial sugarcane since the overlap between the flowering periods of sugarcane and the native species is limited. A phylogenomic reconstruction based on the full plastid genome sequence showed that the three native Saccharum species are the taxa closest to sugarcane in Brazil, being closer than introduced Erianthus or Miscanthus . A 2-year study on eight nutritional composition traits of the 20 main sugarcane cultivars cultivated in Brazil was carried out in six environments. The minimum and maximum values obtained were, in percent: moisture (62.6-82.5); sucrose (9.65-21.76); crude fiber (8.06-21.03); FDN (7.20-20.68); FDA (4.55-16.90); lipids (0.06-1.59); ash (0.08-2.67); and crude protein (0.18-1.18). Besides a considerable amount of genetic variation and plastic responses, many instances of genotype-by-environment interaction were detected., (Copyright © 2020 Bressan, Carvalho, Borges, Carneiro, Silva, Gazaffi, Shirasuna, Abreu, Popin, Figueira and Oliveira.)