Claudio Latorre

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Verified

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• PhD in Science (Ecology and Evolutionary Biology)
• Professor (Full) at Pontifical Catholic University of Chile

Understanding socio-ecological systems over the long term can shed light on past adaptive strategies in environmentally sensitive regions. Central Chile is an emblematic case study for mediterranean ecosystems, where a progressive and sustained population increase began approximately 2000 years ago alongside significant landscape changes. In this w...

Rodent middens provide a fine-scale spatiotemporal record of plant and animal communities over the late Quaternary. In the Americas, middens have offered insight into biotic responses to past environmental changes and historical factors influencing the distribution and diversity of species. However, few studies have used middens to investigate gene...

In deserts, water has been singled out as the most important factor for choosing where to settle, but trees were likely an important part of the landscape for hunter-gatherers beyond merely constituting an economic resource. Yet, this critical aspect has not been considered archaeologically. Here, we present the results of mapping and radiocarbon d...

Most megaherbivores in the Americas went extinct around 10,000 years ago, presumably disrupting the long-distance seed dispersal of large, fleshy-fruited plant species. The neotropical anachronism hypothesis, proposed by Janzen and Martin, suggests that large fruits evolved in response to past selective pressures from now-extinct megafauna. While t...

Major environmental changes were occurring when the first modern humans arrived in South America during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition. How these changes shaped human-environmental interactions across this period remain unclear. We analyzed the stratigraphy, biogeochemistry, and paleoclimatic models from the Ancient Tagua Tagua Lake (ATTL) in...

Laguna del Maule is a volcanic basin lake in the Central Chilean Andes that contains a peculiar and poorly understood algal flora from an ecological perspective. We present a comprehensive list of modern phytoplankton and limnological parameters (measured in 2011 and 2015), as well as a subfossil diatom assemblage spanning the past ∼ 700 years. We...

Aim Arthropods are under‐represented in paleoecological studies but are critical agents in ecological processes. Despite rigorous documentation of diverse arthropod assemblages from ancient rodent (or paleo) middens worldwide, their use for studying ancient arthropod diversity has stalled in recent decades. Here, we review published studies to iden...

Archaeological dates compilation for Central Chile (Valparaíso - Maule Region)

Aim Arbuscular mycorrhizas (AM) and ectomycorrhizas (ECM) have different impacts on nutrient cycling, carbon storage, community dynamics and enhancement of photosynthesis by rising CO2. Recent global analyses have concluded that patterns of AM/ECM dominance in forests worldwide are shaped by climate, with soil nutrients contributing negligible addi...

Paleoclimate reconstructions are essential for understanding the dynamics of the climate system and its past variations. By utilizing climate-dependent proxies, these reconstructions provide a comprehensive perspective on climatic variations that extend far beyond the limited scope of instrumental records, spanning centuries to millennia. Particula...

Chinchilla rats (family Abrocomidae) are hystricomorph rodents primarily inhabiting the central Andes in South America with 8 species in the genus Abrocoma and 2 in Cuscomys. The systematics of this family—relying only on morphological differences—has faced several controversies, particularly in arid-adapted species of Abrocoma (the A. cinerea spec...

Controversies exist regarding the extent of past human influence on terrestrial ecosystems and the relative importance of human versus climatic factors in shaping Holocene vegetation. However, there has been no systematic examination of these issues at a global scale. Here we integrate palaeoecological, archaeological, and palaeoclimate data to ass...

Most megaherbivores in the Americas went extinct around 10,000 years ago, presumably disrupting the long-distance seed dispersal of large, fleshy-fruited plant species1. The neotropical anachronism hypothesis of Janzen and Martin2 is often used to explain many key adaptations of these "megafaunal fruit" plants, yet it lacks robust paleoecological e...

The best ideotypes are under mounting pressure due to increased aridity. Understanding the conserved molecular mechanisms that evolve in wild plants adapted to harsh environments is crucial in developing new strategies for agriculture. Yet our knowledge of such mechanisms in wild species is scant. We performed metabolic pathway reconstruction using...

The water‐dependent nature of arid ecosystems is closely related to the coupling between energy input through photosynthesis and the loss of water through transpiration ( T r ), which can be expressed as water use efficiency (WUE). The relationship, however, between environmental factors and plant physiology in controlling evapotranspiration is not...

Plant–plant positive interactions are key drivers of community structure. Yet, the underlying molecular mechanisms of facilitation processes remain unexplored. We investigated the ‘nursing’ effect of Maihueniopsis camachoi, a cactus that thrives in the Atacama Desert between c. 2800 and 3800 m above sea level. We hypothesised that an important prot...

The overall trajectory for the human–environment interaction has been punctuated by demographic boom-and-bust cycles, phases of growth/overshooting as well as of expansion/contraction in productivity. Although this pattern has been explained in terms of an interplay between population growth, social upscaling, ecosystem engineering and climate vari...

Abrupt and rapid changes in human societies are among the most exciting population phenomena. Human populations tend to show rapid expansions from low to high population density along with increased social complexity in just a few generations. Such demographic transitions appear as a remarkable feature of Homo sapiens population dynamics, most like...

Assessing past and ongoing climate change in the central Andes is critical for understanding the impact of future environmental changes under anthropogenic warming. Emerging from springs located in Bolivia and flowing into northern Chile's Atacama Desert, the Silala River contains inset, terraced wetland (or in‐stream) deposits that provide a uniqu...

Plants can modulate their rhizosphere chemistry, thereby influencing microbe communities. Although our understanding of rhizosphere chemistry is growing, knowledge of its responses to abiotic constraints is limited, especially in realistic ecological contexts. Here, we combined predictive metabolomics with bacterial sequencing data to investigate w...

The best ideotypes are under mounting pressure due to increased aridity in many parts of the world. Understanding the conserved molecular mechanisms that evolve in wild plant species adapted to harsh environments is crucial in developing new strategies for sustainable agriculture. Yet our knowledge of such mechanisms in wild species is scant, parti...

High‐Andean peatlands are high‐altitude wetland ecosystems found throughout the arid central Andes of South America. They form through the establishment of specialized grasses and cushion sedges that are well‐adapted to cold temperatures, in areas where groundwater emerges. The Silala River is a groundwater‐fed high‐Andean fluvial system, which eme...

The long-term climate dynamics of the central Andes are part of an ongoing international research effort to reconstruct past climatic variations and sensitivity to different regional and global drivers during the last 50,000 years. The large number of diverse records, however, makes it difficult to compare results without an integrated spatial anal...

Leaf cuticular waxes are one of the most important environment-plant interaction structural systems that enable desert plants to withstand extreme climatic conditions. We present a long chain n-alkyl lipids study in fresh plant leaves and rodent palaeomiddens collected along an elevational gradient in the south-central Atacama Desert of Chile, cove...

Fossil records of canids are rare and incomplete in South America. In Chile, all well-identified taxa are part of the “South American Canid Clade” and come from sites located in southern Patagonia. Here, we report the first record for Chile of a taxon of the “Canis clade,” assigned to cf. Aenocyon dirus. The fossil remains consist of a partially co...

Natural archives used to reconstruct past climates of the Atacama Desert sometimes lead to contradictory interpretations. One explanation for such contradictions is the non‐stationary nature of the Andean Dry Diagonal (ADD), a narrow zone of precipitation minima between two large scale weather systems. The ADD bisects the Central Andes; to the nort...

During the Formative period by the Late-Holocene (ca. 3000–1500 BP), semi-sedentary and sedentary human occupations had emerged in the oases, salares, and riverine systems in the central depression (2400–1000 masl) of the Atacama Desert, northern Chile (19–25°S). This hyperarid core was marginally occupied during the post-Pleistocene and middle Hol...

Schultz et al. (2021) interpreted the unusual silicate surface glasses found in the northeastern part of the Atacama Desert as products of a comet airburst that occurred about12 k.y. ago. This interpretation contradicts our conclusions (Roperch et al., 2017). On the basis of abundant field and laboratory evidence, our work suggested that the glasse...

Current crop yield of the best ideotypes is stagnating and threatened by climate change. In this scenario, understanding wild plant adaptations in extreme ecosystems offers an opportunity to learn about new mechanisms for resilience. Previous studies have shown species specificity for metabolites involved in plant adaptation to harsh environments....

In the hyperarid Atacama Desert, water availability plays a crucial role in allowing plant survival. Along with scant rainfall, marine advective fog frequently occurs along the coastal escarpment fueling isolated mono-specific patches of Tillandsia vegetation. In this study, we investigate the lipid biomarker composition of the bromeliad Tillandsia...

Study region Andes central Chile (32ºS-36ºS) / Lakes Study focus Mountain lakes play a key role in the terrestrial freshwater reservoir, both for storage of snow melt and precipitation. Although lakes are sensitive to climate variability, the effect of global warming on water availability remains uncertain. Semiarid regions are especially sensitiv...

Significance In the current changing climate, it is essential to improve crop production and resilience under dry and nutrient-poor conditions. Desert plants have naturally evolved to flourish under such conditions. Therefore, understanding the underlying mechanisms for their adaptation can potentially help to ensure food security. The Atacama Dese...

The interplay between plants and soil drives the structure and function of soil microbial communities. In water-limited environments where vascular plants are often absent and only specialized groups of rootless plants grow, this interaction could be mainly asymmetric, with plants supporting nutrients and resources via litter deposition. In this st...

Despite the extensive area covered by the coastal Atacama fog Desert (18–32° S), there is a lack of understanding of its most notorious characteristics, including fog water potential, frequency of fog presence, spatial fog gradients or fog effect in ecosystems, such as Tillandsia fields. Here we discuss new meteorological data for the foggiest seas...

The hyperarid Atacama Desert coast receives scarce moisture inputs mainly from the Pacific Ocean in the form of marine advective fog. The collected moisture supports highly specialized ecosystems, where the bromeliad Tillandsia landbeckii is the dominant species. The fog and low clouds (FLCs) on which these ecosystems depend are affected in their i...

Late Quaternary precipitation dynamics in the central Andes have been linked to both high- and low-latitude atmospheric teleconnections. We use present-day relationships between fecal pellet diameters from ashy chinchilla rats (Abrocoma cinerea) and mean annual rainfall to reconstruct the timing and magnitude of pluvials (wet episodes) spanning the...

Explaining the stability of human populations provides knowledge for understanding the resilience of human societies to environmental change. Here, we use archaeological radiocarbon records to evaluate a hypothesis drawn from resilience thinking that may explain the stability of human populations: Faced with long-term increases in population densit...

The environmental fluctuations of a constantly evolving world can mould a changing context, often unfavourable to sessile organisms that must adjust their resource allocation between both resistance or tolerance mechanisms and growth. Plants bear the fascinating ability to survive and thrive under extreme conditions, a capacity that has always attr...

Global afforestation/deforestation processes (e.g., Amazon deforestation and Europe afforestation) create new anthropogenic controls on carbon cycling and nutrient supply that have not been fully assessed. Here, we use a watershed-lake dynamics approach to investigate how human-induced land cover changes have altered nutrient transference during th...

South America is well known for its abundance of Quaternary fossiliferous deposits, but well-preserved fossil remains from well-dated sites are scarce in the Atacama Desert and adjacent arid Andes. Here we report on a partially complete skeleton (46%) of a single young (ca. 3–4 years old) extinct horse discovered in the Salar de Surire, a salt flat...

Throughout Earth’s most extreme environments, such as the Kalahari Desert or the Arctic, hunter–gatherers found ingenious ways to obtain proteins and sugars provided by plants for dietary requirements. In the hyperarid Atacama Desert, wild plant resources are scarce and unevenly distributed due to limited water availability. This study brings toget...

Recovery methods and techniques for archaeological sampling can yield major differences in abundance and anatomo-taxonomical representation of animals, affecting past social and ecological reconstruction. Despite being a common organic material in archaeological sites, faunal remains typically exhibit differential preservation of species and skelet...

The archaeological record shows that large pre-Inca agricultural systems supported settlements for centuries around the ravines and oases of northern Chile’s hyperarid Atacama Desert. This raises questions about how such productivity was achieved and sustained, and its social implications. Using isotopic data of well-preserved ancient plant remains...

Mining is a major industry in the Atacama Desert, one of the world's leading regions for copper and other minerals. Intense industrialization of copper mining in the mid-twentieth century has likely led to significant environmental pollution through the deposition of heavy metals in the hyperarid Atacama, but how heavy metal pollution has changed o...

Pre-European Plant Consumption and Cultural Changes in the Coastal Lluta Valley, Atacama Desert, Northern Chile (Ca. 5140–390 Cal Yr BP). The introduction of domesticated plants into ancient hunting and gathering economic systems expanded and transformed human societies worldwide during the Holocene. These transformations occurred even in the oases...

Estimating total plant diversity in extreme or hyperarid environments can be challenging, as adaptations to pronounced climate variability include evading prolonged stress periods through seeds or specialized underground organs. Short‐term surveys of these ecosystems are thus likely poor estimators of actual diversity. Here we develop a multimethod...

As with most living organisms, human populations respond to climatic, environmental, and population pressures by transforming their range and subsistence strategies over space and time. An understanding of human ecology can be gained when the archaeological record is placed within the context of dynamic landscape changes and alterations in natural...

Late Quaternary volcanic basins are active landscapes from which detailed archives of past climate and seismic and volcanic activity can be obtained. A multidisciplinary study performed on a transect of sediment cores was used to reconstruct the depositional evolution of the high-elevation Laguna del Maule (LdM) (36∘ S, 2180 m a.s.l., Chilean Andes...

Collapses of food producer societies are recurrent events in prehistory and have triggered a growing concern for identifying the underlying causes of convergences/divergences across cultures around the world. One of the most studied and used as a paradigmatic case is the population collapse of the Rapa Nui society. Here, we test different hypothese...

This video shows what happened to this particular soil when water was added to the surface, causing immediate collapse of the surface of several cm. A particular surprising observation was that the addition of water also caused an immediate and profound color change: from reddish brown to a milky white.

Human activities have profoundly altered the global nutrient cycle through Land Use and Cover Changes (LUCCs) since the industrial revolution and especially during the Great Acceleration (1950 CE). Yet, the impact of such activities on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems above their ecological baselines are not well known, especially when considerin...

Abstract. Late Quaternary volcanic basins are active landscapes from which detailed archives of past climate, seismic and volcanic activity can be obtained. A multidisciplinary study performed on a transect of sediment cores was used to reconstruct the depositional evolution of the high-elevation Laguna del Maule (LdM) (36° S, 2180 m asl, Chilean A...

Paleoparasitology offers a window into prehistoric parasite faunas, and through studying time-series of parasite assemblages it may be possible to observe how parasites responded to past environmental or climate change, or habitat loss (host decline). Here, we use DNA metabarcoding to reconstruct parasite assemblages in twenty-eight ancient rodent...

The Pacific Ocean that flanks the hyperarid Atacama Desert of Northern Chile is one of the richest biomass producers around the world. Thus, it is considered a key factor for the subsistence of prehistoric societies (including mixed-economy groups), that inhabited its coastal ecosystems as well as the neighboring inland areas. This study assesses t...

The social groups that initially inhabited the hyper arid core of the Atacama Desert of northern Chile during the late Pleistocene integrated a wide range of local, regional and supra regional goods and ideas for their social reproduction as suggested by the archaeological evidence contained in several open camps in Pampa del Tamarugal (PdT). Local...

Comprehending ecological dynamics requires not only knowledge of modern communities but also detailed reconstructions of ecosystem history. Ancient DNA (aDNA) metabarcoding allows biodiversity responses to major climatic change to be explored at different spatial and temporal scales. We extracted aDNA preserved in fossil rodent middens to reconstru...

Evaluating the magnitude and direction of biases affecting the ecological information captured by death assemblages is an important prerequisite for understanding past, present, and future community-environment relationships. Here, we establish the ecological fidelity and spatiotemporal resolution of an overlooked source of fossil remains: the soil...

We discovered permanently hydrated CaCl2-rich soils in Earth’s driest region, the Atacama Desert. The soils contain up to ~15% CaCl2. X-ray diffraction indicates the rare minerals sinjarite, schoenite, and tachyhydrite. When water is added, the CaCl2 crust immediately turns white due to an apparent mineralogical phase change from sinjarite to a bri...

A key concern regarding current and future climate change is the possibility of sustained droughts that can have profound impacts on societies. As such, multiple paleoclimatic proxies are needed to identify megadroughts, the synoptic climatology responsible for these droughts, and their impacts on past and future societies. In the hyperarid Atacama...

Desde el poblamiento de América del Sur hace alrededor de 14.500 años o antes, que los primeros habitantes de estas tierras se confrontaron con ambientes extremos. En los Andes Centrales, destaca la híper-aridez del desierto de Atacama junto con la altura extrema del Altiplano Andino. En particular, la zona conocida como el desierto absoluto en el...

La humanidad ha transformado nuestro planeta durante milenios a través de cambios en el paisaje y en los ciclos biogeoquímicos debidos al uso de recursos naturales y a actividades como la agricultura, ganadería y la minería que pueden causar impactos como contaminación de aguas y suelos y deforestación, entre otros. La magnitud y extensión de estos...

Los ecosistemas litorales se encuentran en un delicado equilibrio entre la influencia marina y terrestre, albergan una alta biodiversidad y ejercen un importante control sobre los ciclos y flujos biogeoquímicos entre los continentes y los océanos. Las proyecciones de cambio climático para los próximos 100 años señalan a estos ambientes como altamen...

Abstract Future climate change has the potential to alter the distribution and prevalence of plant pathogens, which may have significant implications for both agricultural crops and natural plant communities. However, there are few long-term datasets against which modelled predictions of pathogen responses to climate change can be tested. Here, we...

The PEOPLE 3000 working group focuses on integrating archaeological and paleoecological case studies with mathematical modeling. We seek to understand how coevolving human societies and ecosystems can successfully cope with the interrelated forces of population growth, increasing social complexity and climate change, and the diversity of trajectori...

We present 37 new radiocarbon ( ¹⁴ C) measurements from mollusk shells fragments sampled along the Chilean continental margin and stored in museum collections with known calendar age. These measurements were used to estimate the modern pre-bomb regional marine ¹⁴ C age deviations from the global ocean reservoir (∆R). Together with previously publis...

Impacts of global climate change on terrestrial ecosystems are imperfectly constrained by ecosystem models and direct observations. Pervasive ecosystem transformations occurred in response to warming and associated climatic changes during the last glacial-to-interglacial transition, which was comparable in magnitude to warming projected for the nex...

The hyperarid conditions of the Atacama Desert preserve remarkable evidence of ancient human foragers beginning at least 13,000 years ago. Although initially considered a harsh and inhospitable environment, recent interdisciplinary research suggests that the Atacama was originally inhabited by highly mobile hunter-gatherers bearing complex technolo...

"The Tarapacá Declaration" draws attention to the urgent need to change how human societies have been using water in the Atacama Desert, based on a historical trajectory spanning several millennia. The Declaration, an initiative that summarizes the results of the CONICYT/PIA, Anillo project SOC1405, is oriented towards civil society and various pol...

Understanding the factors that modulate bacterial community assembly in natural soils is a longstanding challenge in microbial community ecology. In this work, we compared two microbial co-occurrence networks representing bacterial soil communities from two different sections of a pH, temperature and humidity gradient occurring along a western slop...