In the South American dry forest of the Dry Chaco and Chiquitania, the area under cultivation rose from 10% to 19% over the last ten years, and little biophysical, economical, or political constrains seem to prevent further expansion. Although typically associated to a homogeneous agribusiness system, agriculture and its expansion in this territory involve a diverse array of land users. Here we (i) identified and mapped the most conspicuous groups of land users based on existing scientific literature and technical reports, and (ii) described their associated landscape pattern and (iii) vegetation functioning based on different remote sensing tools applied to a set of 218 sample points. We recognized 14 groups of land users of local or foreign origin, composed by individuals or corporative organizations, and dedicated either to pasture or crop production, or its combination. These groups displayed a wide variation in the scale of their operations as suggested by a 60-fold difference in paddock sizes. Twelve years of MODIS-NDVI data showed small and non-significant differences in the magnitude of primary productivity (1.2 fold-difference) but strong contrasts in its seasonality and long-term variability,
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