Particle production mechanisms from RHIC to LHC

I will review RHIC data with respect to the intriguing possibility that the hadron production mechanism in the produced partonic medium might be different than in vacuum. I will use the measurements of collective features, such as flow and quenching of identified particles, to show that different regions of the particle momentum spectrum are likely populated through different mechanisms, and that the medium seems to play an important role in hadronization. Finally I will address the question whether the different initial conditions achievable in heavy ion collisions at LHC energies, compared to RHIC, might affect the properties of the deconfined quark-gluon phase and its hadronization to baryonic matter.