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Publications (143)
Changes in phytoplankton composition and abundance are controlled by multiple factors, including physical forcing and nutrient stoichiometry. This study seeks to assess the interplay between the environmental and biogeochemical conditions in shaping the phytoplankton community structure in open ocean waters off western Patagonia. For this purpose,...
[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2022.862812.].
The Beagle Channel is a 300-km long passage connecting the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans at ~55° S, where glaciers and river streams meet subantarctic waters. Here we present the first evaluation of downward fluxes and composition of particulate matter in the channel. Settling particle fluxes were collected by sequential sediment traps deployed in tw...
The Patagonia archipelago interior sea (PAIS) of southern Chile is one of the largest fjord systems on earth. These coastal waters include remote and virtually pristine areas where extreme rainfall/runoff and glacial meltwaters intensify the land–ocean interaction impinging on the biological, physical, and chemical characteristics of oceanic subant...
Little is known about the biology of cold-water corals (CWCs), let alone the reproduction and early life stages of these important deep-sea foundation species. Through a three-year aquarium experiment, we described the reproductive mode, larval release periodicity, planktonic stage, larval histology, metamorphosis and post-larval development of the...
The Patagonian fjords have experienced intense harmful algal blooms (HABs) in the last decade, affecting important aquaculture areas in southern Chile. Climatic anomalies have recently triggered ‘super blooms’ of opportunistic toxic microalgal genera, especially due to persistent thermal stratification which likely provides an optimal niche for HAB...
The stratified Chilean Comau Fjord sustains a dense population of the cold-water coral (CWC) Desmophyllum dianthus in aragonite supersaturated shallow and aragonite undersaturated deep water. This provides a rare opportunity to evaluate CWC fitness trade-offs in response to physico-chemical drivers and their variability. Here, we combined year-long...
The Beagle Channel (BC) is an inter-oceanic passage shared by Argentina and Chile that connects the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean and has contrasting hydrological sub-basins along its 300 km length. This system is influenced by the inflow of sub-Antarctic waters that mix with continental contributions from glaciers and fluvial discharges, ha...
The activity of marine microorganisms depends on community composition, yet, in some oceans, less is known about the environmental and ecological processes that structure their distribution. The objective of this study was to test the effect of geographical distance and environmental parameters on prokaryotic community structure in the Southern Oce...
Patagonian fjords and channels in southern Chile are heterogeneous ecosystems characterized by the interaction of estuarine and marine waters influencing physical-chemical conditions and biological assemblages. Besides salinity, microbial communities from estuarine and marine origin are naturally subjected to changing organic matter quality and var...
Comau Fjord is a stratified Chilean Patagonian Fjord characterized by a shallow brackish surface layer and a >400 m layer of aragonite-depleted subsurface waters. Despite the energetic burden of low aragonite saturation levels to calcification, Comau Fjord harbours dense populations of cold-water corals (CWC). While this paradox has been attributed...
Abstract Mechanisms that reliably and efficiently guide practitioners to find relevant evidence are urgent for conservation decision‐making in Chilean Patagonia. The objective of this study was to systematically collect, characterize, and synthesize the extensive evidence about conservation knowledge in Chilean Patagonia focusing on the impacts of...
The ocean acts as the regulator of the climatic state on planet Earth, absorbing heat, controlling the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and maintaining the hydrological cycle that supplies fresh water to the planet. Ocean monitoring is necessary to understand its dynamics at different temporal and spatial scales, as well as to qu...
Coccolithophores are potentially affected by ongoing ocean acidification, where rising CO2 lowers seawater pH and calcite saturation state (Ωcal). Southern Patagonian fjords and channels provide natural laboratories for studying these issues due to high variability in physical and chemical conditions. We surveyed coccolithophore assemblages in Pata...
The Beagle Channel (BC) is a long and narrow interoceanic passage (∼270 km long and 1–12 km wide) with west-east orientation and complex bathymetry connecting the Pacific and Atlantic oceans at latitude 55°S. This study is the first integrated assessment of the main oceanographic features of the BC, using recent oceanographic observations from crui...
Around the Greenlandic and Antarctic coastlines, sediment plumes associated with glaciers are significant sources of lithogenic material to the ocean. These plumes contain elevated concentrations of a range of trace metals, especially in particle bound phases, but it is not clear how these particles affect dissolved (<0.2 µm) metal distributions in...
Cold-water corals (CWC) face an uncertain future under climate change. They seem to grow successfully under low pH conditions but physiological mechanisms and the role of energy efficiency in sustaining metabolic rates are largely unknown. The solitary, pseudo-colonial CWC Desmophyllum dianthus thrives in Comau Fjord (Northern Patagonia, Chile) des...
In southern Patagonia, the Beagle Channel shows very low production during winter but simultaneously sustains very dense aggregations of the pelagic stage of squat lobster (Munida gregaria), a benthic decapod whose pelagic juveniles have the largest body size within the chitinous pelagic community. To assess the coexistence of the mesozooplankton c...
Coccolithophores are potentially affected by ongoing ocean acidification, where rising CO2 lowers seawater pH and calcite saturation state (Ωcal). Southern Patagonian fjords and channels provide natural laboratories for studying these issues 15 due to high variability in physical and chemical conditions. We surveyed coccolithophore assemblages in P...
We studied the dynamics of fermentation and anaerobic degradation of organic matter at a fixed station in the Oxygen Minimum Zone (OMZ) within the Humboldt Current System off Concepción, central Chile. Products of the main anaerobic microbial reactions [fermentation, denitrification, and reduction of Fe(OH)3 and SO42–] were analyzed during laborato...
Las Contribuciones Determinadas a nivel Nacional (NDC, por sus siglas en inglés) se han convertido en un instrumento clave para comprometer principalmente metas de mitigación y adaptación al cambio climático. Gestadas en el Acuerdo de París (2015) aspiran a cumplir dos de sus objetivos más ambiciosos: mantener el
incremento de la temperatura global...
Marine phytoplankton growth at high latitudes is extensively limited by iron availability. Icebergs are a vector transporting the bioessential micronutrient iron into polar oceans. Therefore, increasing iceberg fluxes due to global warming have the potential to increase marine productivity and carbon export, creating a negative climate feedback. Ho...
Here, we participated in five independent research cruises that spanned almost the entire Patagonian fjords region (from 41.5 to 56.0°S) in order to determine the importance of the physical/chemical factors that influence phytoplankton size structure triggered by freshwater discharge and oceanic water intrusion. Throughout the Patagonian region phy...
During January and February 2017 massive phytoplankton blooms (chlorophyll > 15 mg m-3) were registered in surface waters within two bays in the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP). Reflecting these intense blooms, surface waters exhibited high pH (up to 8.4), low pCO2 (< 175 µatm) and low nitrate concentrations (down to 1.5 µM). These summer phytopl...
The distribution, composition, and transport of both dissolved and particulate organic carbon (DOC and POC) were studied across a terrestrial - marine transition system in the Chilean North-Patagonia (41°S). At the land-fjord boundary we reported: (i) high concentrations of both silicic acid (up to 100 μM) and integrated chlorophyll a (62 mg m⁻²),...
It is relevant to understand the processes and factors that modulate the efficiency of the carbon pump throughout the ecosystem of Patagonian fjords. Spatial variability of primary productivity and bacteria-microplankton biomass was assessed in relation to inorganic nutrients and stratification across nearshore zones of southern Patagonia (50–53°S)...
Phytoplankton productivity in glaciomarine embayments of the West Antarctic Peninsula is constrained because of extensive thermohaline variability, which is due to seasonal sea-ice and glacial melting. To determine whether or not this affects the biology of the water column, we explored the influence of surface water properties on phytoplankton pro...
This correction serves to provide the correct rendering of Table 3 with its respective symbols corrected to superscript (provided below and not in the original article). Additionally with this correction the author would like to bring to attention the revision of the original article, correcting typographical errors in the Abstract, Tables 1, 2, 3...
Organic ligands play a key role controlling trace metal bioavailability in the world's oceans, yet the species-specific requirements determining whether certain iron forms can be metabolized largely remain unclear. Siderophores are considered relevant within the pool of ligands keeping iron soluble. We used desferrioxamine B (DFB) to study the side...
The Chilean Patagonia constitutes one of the most important and extensive fjord systems worldwide, therefore can be used as a natural laboratory to elucidate the pathway of both organic and inorganic matter in the receiving environment. In this study we use data collected during an intensive oceanographic cruise along the Magellan Strait into the A...
The LOHAFEX iron fertilization experiment was conducted for 39. days in the closed core of a cyclonic mesoscale eddy located along the Antarctic Polar Front in the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean. Mixed layer (ML) waters were characterized by high nitrate (~. 20. μM), low dissolved iron (DFe ~. 0.2. nM) and low silicate concentrations (below...
An intensification of upwelling-favorable winds in recent decades has been detected in some of the main eastern boundary current systems, especially at higher latitudes, but the response of coastal phytoplankton communities in the Humboldt Current System (HCS) remains unknown. At higher latitudes in the HCS (35-40°S), strong seasonality in wind-dri...
The southernmost Patagonian region constitutes a major glaciered area with a high freshwater input loaded with particulate and dissolved matter. We assessed the relevance of the terrestrial (allochthonous) and marine (autochthonous) matter that permeates into the fjord and channel system and their possible impact on the euphausiid-based food web. A...
The role of coccolithophores in the biogenic carbonate cycle was studied in the coastal upwelling zone off Concepción, Chile
(36°S), and in adjacent oceanic waters during spring 2004. Coccolithophore abundance and diversity increased steadily from
coastal to oceanic regions. The presence of an active coastal upwelling center clearly partitioned the...
Research projects combining different disciplines are increasingly common and sought after by funding agencies looking for ways to achieve environmental, social, and economic sustainability. Creating and running a truly integrated research project that combines very different disciplines is, however, no easy task. Large-scale efforts to create inte...
Cage fish farms release the inorganic nutrients ammonium (NH4) and phosphate
(PO4) into the surrounding water. The objectives of this experiment from the Comau fjord (42.2° S)
in southern Chile was to study how increased input of NH4 and PO4 to pelagic waters affects the
biomass of defined functional groups of the microbial food web and the communi...
During 2010 several massive salp outbreaks of the Subantarctic species Ihlea magalhanica were recorded in the inner sea of Chiloé Island (ISCh, Southern Chile), affecting both phytoplankton abundance and salmon farmers by causing high fish mortality. First outbreaks were recorded during February 2010 when Ihlea magalhanica reached up to 654,000 ind...
During 2010 several massive salp outbreaks of the Subantarctic species Ihlea magalhanica were recorded in the inner sea of Chiloé Island (ISCh, Southern Chile), affecting both phytoplankton abundance and salmon farmers by causing high fish mortality. First outbreaks were recorded during February 2010 when Ihlea magalhanica reached up to 654,000 ind...
The Patagonian fjords have been recognized as a major region of relatively high primary productivity systems during spring-summer bloom periods, where iron-organic matter forms may be essential complexes involved in key growth processes connected to the carbon and nitrogen cycles. We used two dissolved organic matter (DOM) types, marine polysacchar...
The fjords and channels of the Chilean Patagonia are unique, and their high biological diversity is mainly associated with physicochemical characteristics of local water masses. The topography, depth, and extension of the Patagonian basins affect the extent to which water is exchanged between the inner and outer parts of the fjords, determining the...
Patagonian fjord systems, and in particular the fjords and channels associated with the Baker/Pascua Rivers, are currently under conspicuous natural and anthropogenic perturbations. These systems display very high variability, where limnetic and oceanic features overlap generating strong vertical and horizontal physicochemical gradients. The CIMAR...
The size composition of primary producers is important for how energy is channeled through a food web and on to the higher trophic levels and eventually to fisheries. To evaluate this, we studied the productive patterns for large (micro) versus small (nano) phytoplankton in two south marine Patagonian ecosystems: The Inner Sea of Chiloe—ISCh and, M...
[1] A closed eddy core in the Subantarctic Atlantic Ocean was fertilized twice with two tons of iron (as FeSO4), and the 300 km2 fertilized patch was studied for 39 days to test whether fertilization enhances downward particle flux into the deep ocean. Chlorophyll a and primary productivity doubled after fertilization, and photosynthetic quantum yi...
We conducted a study to characterize the foraminiferal association off south-central Chile under positive (January to December 2006), neutral (January to June 2007), and negative (July to September 2007) thermal anomalies, which coincided approximately with El Niño (EN), normal (NC), and La Niña (LN) conditions, respectively, using samples collecte...
This study reports changes in ascorbic acid (AA) in anchoveta eggs, copepods and zooplankton during the 2006, 2007 and 2009 main spawning seasons in the coastal area of the central Humboldt Current System, Chile. Anchoveta eggs, copepods and total zooplankton community shared a seasonal variation and an increasing trend in AA concentration from win...
Anthropogenic (aquaculture) changes in environment nutrient concentrations may affect phytoplankton (biomass and taxa composition) in marine coastal waters off the Chilean Patagonia. The effects of adding nitrate (NO(3) (-)) to natural phytoplankton assemblages were evaluated considering biomass, cell abundance, and taxonomic composition. Microcosm...
Parasitoids belonging to Amoebophryidae (Marine ALVeolate Group II or MALV II) infecting dinoflagellates were investigated in Reloncavi Fjord (southern Chile) in the austral summer 2009. Of the 12 dinoflagellate species recorded during monthly sampling, Prorocentrum micans, Dinophysis acuminata, and Phalacroma rotundata were infected by Amoebophrya...
This study seeks to determine the effects of local hydrography on the distribution, abundance and feeding of chaetognaths in the Lazarev Sea, an area strongly controlled by physical processes which has been held responsible for initiating the Weddell Polynya. Zooplankton samples were taken at 39 stations on four transects located between 6°W and 3°...
We assessed temporal variability in phytoplankton biomass, Chlorophyll
a, nutrient availability, Gross Primary Production (GPP), community
respiration (CR), and bacterial secondary production (BSP) over a year
of monthly observations (October 2007 to October 2008) at a fixed
station in the Puyuhuapi fjord, Chilean Patagonia (44° S, 73°
W). A set of...
Carbon system parameters measured during several expeditions along the coast of Chile (23°S-56°S) have been used to show the main spatial and temporal trends of air-sea CO2 fluxes in the coastal waters of the eastern South Pacific. Chilean coastal waters are characterized by strong pCO2 gradients between the atmosphere and the surface water, with h...
Grazing experiments were used to study the trophic interactions among plankton components in a stratified fjord of southern Chile. A strong pycnocline (7-10 m) separating the low-salinity layer from the deeper, high-salinity, marine layer, affected the composition, abundance and distribution of phytoplankton and zooplankton every season. Nanoflagel...
Two research cruises (CIMAR 13 Fiordos) were conducted in the N–S oriented macrobasin of the Moraleda Channel (42–47°S), which includes the E–W oriented Puyuhuapi Channel and Aysen Fjord, during two contrasting productive seasons: austral winter (27 July–7 August 2007) and spring (2–12 November 2007). These campaigns set out to assess the spatio-te...
We evaluated changes in siliceous export production and the source of organic matter preserved in sediment core MD07-3109H recovered from the Gulf of Ancud, Chiloé Inner Sea (42°S, 72°W, water column depth: 328 m), southern Chile. We analyzed the abundance of siliceous microfossils (diatoms, silicoflagellates, sponge spicules, Chrysophyte cysts, ph...