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Publications
Publications (56)
The species Valeriana praecipitis (Caprifoliaceae), new to science and endemic to the Ñuble Region, Central Chile, is formally described. Morphological data support its placement in a new species, clearly different from V. philippiana. A detailed description, insights about its habitat and ecology, distribution map and illustration are provided. A...
Prumnopitys andina is a South American podocarp with a restricted distribution in southern Andean temperate forests, and is severely threatened due to habitat loss. Despite much dendrochronological work on other temperate South American conifers, little is known about the dendrochronological potential of P. andina. Here, we examine the main feature...
Global Climate Models project that observed climate trends are likely to be preserved and the number of extreme events will be increasing during the rest of the 21st century, which may have a detrimental impact on forest ecosystems. These impacts may include forest decline and widespread dieback of the most vulnerable biomes, such as the Mediterran...
Since 2010, Chile has experienced one of the most severe droughts over the last century, the so-called mega-drought (MD). The MD conditions, combined with intensive agricultural activities and the current water management system, have led to water scarcity problems in Mediterranean and Semi-arid regions of Chile. An emblematic case is the Petorca b...
The rivers originating in the southern Andes (18°–55°S) support numerous ecosystems and a large number of human populations and socio-economic activities in the adjacent lowlands of Chile, Argentina and Bolivia. Here we show that ca. 75% of the total variance in the streamflow records from this extensive region can be explained by only eight spatia...
Trees’ growth responses to climate may depend on tree age and site conditions. In dioecious species, sex adds an extra level of complexity due to differential reproductive effort between the sexes and potentially sex-related dimorphic growth. Araucaria araucana is a long-lived dioecious conifer with outstanding morphological and functional adaptati...
Supplementary material caption
Fig. S1. View of the four study sites with Austrocedrus chilensis populations in the upper Cachapoal Valley, central Chile.
Fig. S2. Cross sections of Austrocedrus chilensis relict wood showing multiple fire scars.
Fig. S3. Continuous wavelet power spectra of mean fire frequency and mean fire interval in the 1200–1...
The long-term history of fire regimes in the Mediterranean Andes of Chile is almost unknown. Subalpine woodlands of Austrocedrus chilensis include long-lived trees resilient to low-intensity fires, which can provide valuable tree-ring-based information about fire history. In this work, we performed an annually resolved multicentury reconstruction o...
Tree-ring anatomical anomalies have received little attention in southern South American trees, however they can contain valuable intra-annual environmental information. This study addressed for the first time the three most frequent tree- ring anomalies recorded in the northern and oldest known Austrocedrus chilensis forest in central Chile (32-35...
Nothomyrcia fernandeziana (Hook. & Arn.) Kausel is an endemic tree species from Robinson Crusoe Island (RC), Juan Fernández archipelago, Chile. Aristotelia chilensis (Molina) Stuntz, is an invasive species introduced in the island since the mid XIX century that compete with endemic species and threatens their conservation. Radial growth patterns ca...
Nothomyrcia fernandeziana (Hook. & Arn.) Kausel is an endemic tree species from Robinson Crusoe Island (RC), Juan Fernández Archipelago, Chile. Aristotelia chilensis (Molina) Stuntz, is an invasive species introduced in the island since the mid XIX century that compete with endemic species and threatens their conservation. Radial growth patterns ca...
In the Mediterranean Andes (MA; 30°S–37°S), the main rivers are largely fed by melting snowpack and provide fresh water to around 10 million people on both sides of the Cordillera. Water resources in the MA are under pressure due to the extensive development of industrial agriculture and mining activities. This pressure is increasing as the region...
Tree-ring widths and intrannual wood density fluctuations (IADFs) are sound proxies of the environmental factors that control the growth of forest tree species. In this work we evaluated the impact of climate on radial growth and IADFs formation in an Austrocedrus chilensis plantation in Valdivia, Chile. We calculated mean tree-ring chronology and...
Little dendroclimatic research has been conducted on species of Podocarpus, in response to inherent
difficulties associated with tree-ring differentiation and cross-dating. We sampled complete stem cross sections from a plantation of Podocarpus salignus trees in Valdivia, Chile, near the southern edge of the species’ range. We measured earlywood, l...
Despite the great number and variety of glaciers in southern South America, in situ glacier mass-balance records are extremely scarce and glacier–climate relationships are still poorly understood in this region. Here we use the longest (> 35 years) and most complete in situ mass-balance record, available for the Echaurren Norte glacier (ECH) in the...
Lands in south-central Chile, long thought to have been marginal until the Spanish conquest, are here shown to have been developing complex societies between at least AD 1000 and 1500. Part of the motor was provided by coastland cultivation on raised platforms, here identified and surveyed for the first time. The authors date the field systems and...
Despite the great number and variety of glaciers in southern South America, in situ glacier mass balance records are extremely scarce and glacier–climate relationships are still poorly understood in this region. Here we use the longest (> 35 years) and most complete in situ mass balance record, available for glaciar Echaurren Norte in the Andes at...
The accumulation of snow during winter and its subsequent melting during warmer months provide most of the water needed for the human populations located along the semiarid western and eastern slopes of the Andes in central Chile and central-western Argentina. The societies in these regions can be characterized as 'hydraulic societies,' as social t...
We presented the checklist of the vascular flora of the Futangue Park, a private natural protected area, in the Andean Temperate Region of southern Chile. We recorded 295 species, distributed in 91 families and 165 genera. This park support an important proportion of the flora from temperate forests of southern South America (ca. 40-70%). The 66% o...
In most cases, gauged river flow records in southern South America extend for only a few decades, hampering the detection of long-term, decadal to centennial-scale cycles and trends. Long streamflow series can be reconstructed from tree-ring records, offering the opportunity of extending the limited hydrological instrumental data to several centuri...
In most cases, gauged river flow records in southern South America exist for only a few decades, hampering the detection of long-term, decadal to centennial-scale cycles and trends. Long streamflow series can be reconstructed from tree-ring records, offering the opportunity of extending the limited hydrological instrumental data for several centuri...
[1] Because of the reported decreasing trends in precipitation in south central Chile and the high priority of the Valdivian rain forest ecoregion conservation, it is essential to understand long-term changes in water availability in this area. Thus, this study presents a 410 year annual streamflow reconstruction for the Maule River watershed locat...
The Andes Cordillera acts as regional “Water Towers” for several countries and encompasses a wide range of ecosystems and
climates. Several hydroclimatic changes have been described for portions of the Andes during recent years, including glacier
retreat, negative precipitation trends, an elevation rise in the 0° isotherm, and changes in regional s...
The loss and decline of one ecosystem can be triggered by continuous changes in structure made by frequent and/or severe disturbances. Therefore we quantify the structural losses and the posteriori recovery after man-made disturbances of two fragments of P. uviferum in the Reserva Nacional Valdivia (RNV; 40°S) by studying the evidence of human dist...
We describe the structure of the endemic Robinson Crusoe Island forest. We analyse the regeneration strategies
of the trees: Myrceugenia fernandeziana, Fagara mayu, and Drimys confertifolia. Inventories were taken on nearly
intact montane forest remnants with emphasis on spatial patterns by using Ripley’s K (t) function. We
hypothesized that i) orn...
We describe twelve previously undocumented Pigerodendron uviferum D.Don (Florin) populations outside of protected areas at the northern limit of the Chilean Coast Range (from 39º43'-40º S), extending their northern limits. These small swamp-populations are isolated within a matrix of pastures and exotic forest plantations, and are subject to chron...
Este trabajo se desarrolló en la porción media de la cuenca del río Cachapoal, cordillera andina de Chile central (34º S). En esta zona se exploraron las relaciones entre factores antropogénicos y frecuencia de incendios en bosques de Austrocedrus chilensis (ciprés de la cordillera). Se reconstruyó una cronología preliminar de incendios de esta cue...
This work was developed in the Cachapoal river basin, Andean Mountain, of Central Chile. In this basin the relations between anthropogenic factors and fire frequency in Austrocedrus chilensis forests were explored. Fire history of this area was reconstructed using cypress cross-sections dating, historical revision and local people interviews. Archa...
We describe twelve previously undocumented Pigerodendron uviferum D.Don (Florin) populations outside of protected areas at the northern limit of the Chilean Coast Range (from 39°43′-40° S), extending their northern limits. These small swamp-populations are isolated within a matrix of pastures and exotic forest plantations, and are subject to "chron...
We describe the structure of the endemic Robinson Crusoe Island forest. We analyse the regeneration strategies of the trees: Myrceugenia fernandeziana, Fagara mayu, and Drimys confertifolia. Inventories were taken on nearly intact montane forest remnants with emphasis on spatial patterns by using Ripley's K (t) function. We hypothesized that i) orn...
Snow and ice in the Central Andes of Chile and Argentina (33–36 °S) are the major source of water for the highly populated regions near the cities of Santiago and Mendoza. However, our knowledge of the forces driving the general glacier retreat in the region is limited. In order to obtain a long-term perspective of glacier fluctuations and their re...
Recent years have seen a consolidation and expansion of tree-ring sample collection across South America. Most collections are concentrated in the temperate forests along the eastern and western slopes of the Southern Andes (32°S to 55°S). However, important advances in the reconnaissance and collection of new woody species useful for dendrochronol...
Currently, Pilgerodendron uviferum forests cover over 172,000 hectares of Chiloé Province. The traditional utilization of these forests caused the destruction and burnt of extensive areas of cypress. Therefore this species was classified by IUCN as vulnerable and included in Appendix I of CITES. This study aimed to analyze and characterize the dyna...
Pilgerodendron uviferum, ciprés de Las Guaitecas, is a long-lived member of the family Cupressaceae; it is dioecious, and endemic to the temperate forests of South America. Its geographic range extends over 1,600 km, from 39°35'S (Valdivia Province, Chile) to 54°20'S (Cape Horn), making it the conifer with the southernmost distribution in the world...
The snowpack in the central Andes (30°-37°S) is the primary source for streamflow in central Chile and central-western Argentina, but few published studies are available on snowpack variability in the region. This paper develops the first regional snowpack series (1951-2005) from Chilean and Argentinean snow course records. This series shows a stro...
Pilgerodendron uviferum, ciprés de Las Guaitecas, es una especie dioica, miembro de la familia de las Cupressaceae, endémica de los bosques templados de Sudamérica. Su distribución geográfica se extiende cerca de 1.600 km, desde los 39°35'S (provincia de Valdivia) hasta los 54°20' S (Cabo de Hornos), convirtiéndose en la conifera con distribución m...
An expanded network of moisture-sensitive tree-ring chronologies has been developed for central Chile from long-lived cypress trees in the Andean Cordillera. A regional ring width chronology of cypress sites has been used to develop well-calibrated and verified estimates of June-December precipitation totals for central Chile extending from A.D. 12...
Livestock browsing and grazing are considered serious threats to the conservation of the Juan Fernndez Islands’ flora, Chile. Nowadays the elimination of grazing by cattle is very difficult. In order to prevent the␣entrance of cattle into the native forests, an 8.3km-long fence was established on the main island (Robinson Crusoe). The response of t...
Treeline and high elevation sites in the central and southern Chilean Andes (32°39′ to 55°S) have shown to be an excellent source of paleoenvironmental records because their physical and biological systems are highly sensitive to climatic and environmental variations. In addition, most of these sites have been less disturbed by logging and other hu...
Gomortega keule is an endemic Chilean tree currently in danger of extinction. Although the regeneration pat- terns of the species are poorly-understood, some authors have alluded to a widespread lack of seedlings in established populations. Past regeneration patterns were inferred from diameter distributions in a population of G. keule in an old-gr...
Gomortega keule is an endemic Chilean tree currently in danger of extinction. Although the regeneration patterns of the species are poorly-understood, some authors have alluded to a widespread lack of seedlings in established populations. Past regeneration patterns were inferred from diameter distributions in a population of G. keule in an old-grow...
Gomortega keule is an endemic Chilean tree currently in danger of extinction. Although the regeneration patterns of the species are poorly-understood, some authors have alluded to a widespread lack of seedlings in established populations. Past regeneration patterns were inferred from diameter distributions in a population of G. keule in an old-grow...
High-resolution proxies of past climate are essential for a better understanding of the climate system. Tree rings are routinely used to reconstruct Holocene climate variations at high temporal resolution, but only rarely have they offered insight into climate variability during earlier periods. Fitzroya cupressoides-a South American conifer which...
Dentro del género Nothofagus en Chile se reconocen dos especies con problemas de conservación, una de los cuales corresponde a N. glauca. Este árbol se desarrolla en la zona mediterránea de Chile central y se mantiene en poblaciones sometidas a un intenso proceso de fragmentación. La presente nota entrega antecedentes acerca de un rodal localizado...
High-resolution proxies of past climate are essential for a better understanding of the climate system. Tree rings are routinely used to reconstruct Holocene climate variations at high temporal resolution, but only rarely have they offered insight into climate variability during earlier periods. Fitzroya cupressoides-a South American conifer which...
The growth of Araucaria araucana, like that of many other conifers, is characterised by the production of a monopodial stem with branch whorls. However, the periodicity of whorl formation in this species has not been subjected to systematic study. We used growth ring counts to determine the frequency of whorl formation in sun- and shade-grown juven...
