Rodrigo De la Iglesia

• Professor (Associate) at Pontifical Catholic University of Chile

The way strong environmental gradients shape multispecific assemblages has allowed us to examine a suite of ecological and evolutionary hypotheses about structure, regulation, and community responses to fluctuating environments. But whether the highly diverse co-occurring microorganisms are shaped in similar ways as macroscopic organisms across the...

Characterizing seasonal changes in diatom community profiles in coastal environments is scarce worldwide. Despite diatoms being prevalent in microfouling, their role in microbially influenced corrosion of metallic materials remains poorly understood. This study reports the effect of seasonal variations on the settlement of marine diatoms and corros...

Over the past decades, our understanding of the vital role microbes play in ecosystem processes has greatly expanded. However, we still have limited knowledge about how microbial communities interact with larger organisms. Many existing representations of microbial interactions are based on co-occurrence patterns, which do not provide clear insight...

This project aimed to assess the impact of salmon farming activity on microorganism abundance in the Cupquelán fjord, located in the Aysén Region of Chile. Sampling was conducted at four sites along a 1 km radio surrounding a fish farm cage in the fjord installed within the limits of the Laguna San Rafael National Park – a Biosphere Reserve declare...

En este proyecto se evaluó el impacto de la salmonicultura en la abundancia de microorganismos en el fiordo Cupquelán, Región de Aysén, demostrando diferencias en la composición del agua y destacando la importancia de entender las comunidades microbianas en ambientes vulnerables para mantener la estabilidad biológica.

Municipal and industrial wastewater discharges in coastal and marine environments are of major concern due to their high carbon and nitrogen loads and the resulted phenomenon of eutrophication. Bioelectrochemical reactors (BERs) for simultaneous nitrogen and carbon removal have gained attention owing to their cost efficiency and versatility, as wel...

The passive film depends on the alloy's composition and the exposure conditions. How the surface composition affects the selection of microbial biofilms though, has not been fully elucidated or incorporated into the analysis of corrosive biofilms. The degradation of stainless steel (SS) exposed to natural seawater was studied to understand how the...

In marine ecosystems, most invertebrates possess diverse microbiomes on their external surfaces, such as those found in the pedal mucus of grazing gastropods and chitons that aids displacement on different surfaces. The microbes are then transported around and placed in contact with free-living microbial communities of micro and other macro-organis...

In the Antarctic Peninsula, increases in mean annual temperature are associated with the coverage and population density of the two Antarctic vascular plant species: Deschampsia antarctica and Colobanthus quitensis, potentially modifying critical soil processes. In this study, we characterized the diversity and community composition of active micro...

For many years, the world’s coastal marine ecosystems have received industrial waste with high nitrogen concentrations, generating the eutrophication of these ecosystems. Different physicochemical-biological technologies have been developed to remove the nitrogen present in wastewater. However, conventional technologies have high operating costs an...

High concentrations of nitrate from industrial discharges to coastal marine environments are a matter of concern owing to their ecological consequences. In the last years, Bioelectrochemical Denitrification Systems (BEDS) have emerged as a promising nitrate removal technology. However, they still have limitations, such as the enrichment strategy fo...

The way strong environmental gradients shape multispecific assemblages has allowed us to examine a suite of ecological and evolutionary hypotheses about structure, regulation, and community responses to fluctuating environments. But whether the highly diverse co-occurring, free-living microorganisms are shaped in similar ways as macroscopic organis...

Microbially influenced corrosion (MIC) is an aggressive type of corrosion that occurs in aquatic environments and is sparked by the development of a complex biological matrix over a metal surface. In marine environments, MIC is exacerbated by the frequent variability in environmental conditions and the typically high diversity of microbial communit...

Coastal systems are highly productive areas for primary productivity and ecosystem services and host a large number of human activities. Since industrialization, metal micronutrients in these regions have increased. Phytoplankton use metals as micronutrients in metabolic processes, but in excess, had deleterious effects. In coastal systems, picoeuk...

Year-round reports of phytoplankton dynamics in the West Antarctic Peninsula are rare and mainly limited to microscopy and/or pigment-based studies. We analyzed the phytoplankton community from coastal waters of Fildes Bay in the West Antarctic Peninsula between January 2014 and 2015 using metabarcoding of the nuclear and plastidial 18/16S rRNA gen...

Due to the increasing anthropogenic CO2 emissions, Ocean Acidification (OA) is progressing rapidly around the world. Despite the major role that microorganisms play on the marine biogeochemical cycling and ecosystem functioning, the response of bacterial communities upon OA scenarios is still not well understood. Here, we have conducted a detailed...

The technology transfer mechanism, outreach, and implementation of high-end scientific knowledge developed in Chile and the rest of the world presents an evident challenge; its costs and complexity are not consistent with the economic and technical scenarios of a large percentage of society. This high technology innovation dynamic makes it difficu...

Year-round reports of phytoplankton dynamics in the West Antarctic Peninsula are rare and mainly limited to microscopy and/or pigment-based studies. We analyzed the phytoplankton community from coastal waters of Fildes Bay in the West Antarctic Peninsula between January 2014 and 2015 using metabarcoding of the nuclear and plastidial 18/16S rRNA gen...

Oxygen minimum zones (OMZs) support ocean biogeochemical cycles of global importance. The OMZ off central Chile is characterized by seasonally variable oxygen concentrations due to upwelling events. Bacterial and archaeal communities from this area have been previously described; however, picoeukaryote communities remain largely unexplored. In orde...

Microbial electrochemical technologies have revealed the opportunity of electrochemical enrichment for specific bacterial groups that are able to catalyze reactions of interest. However, there are unsolved challenges towards their application under aggressive environmental conditions, such as in the sea. This study demonstrates the impact of surfac...

The effects of tidal cycles associated with the water level on the biocorrosion of stainless steel AISI 316L were studied. Steel coupons were exposed to different conditions of immersion in mesocosms fed by fresh seawater either continuously or in accordance with the periodicity of natural tides. After 5 and 15 weeks, all coupons were found to have...

Mangroves in the Northwest Coast of South America are contaminated with heavy metals due to wastewater discharges from industries, affecting the biota from this environment. However, bacteria proliferate in these harsh environmental conditions becoming possible sentinel of these contaminations. In this study, bacterial community composition was ana...

Microbiomes are vast communities of microorganisms and viruses that populate all natural ecosystems. Viruses have been considered to be the most variable component of microbiomes, as supported by virome surveys and examples of high genomic mosaicism. However, recent evidence suggests that the human gut virome is remarkably stable compared with that...

Microbiomes are vast communities of microbes and viruses that populate all natural ecosystems. Viruses have been considered the most variable component of microbiomes, as supported by virome surveys and examples of high genomic mosaicism. However, recent evidence suggests that the human gut virome is remarkably stable compared to other environments...

Phytoplankton blooms taking place during the warm season drive high productivity in Antarctic coastal seawaters. Important temporal and spatial variations exist in productivity patterns, indicating local constraints influencing the phototrophic community. Surface water in Chile Bay (Greenwich Island, South Shetlands) is influenced by freshwater fro...

Hypersaline environments represent some of the most challenging settings for life on Earth. Extremely halophilic microorganisms have been selected to colonize and thrive in these extreme environments by virtue of a broad spectrum of adaptations to counter high salinity and osmotic stress. Although there is substantial data on microbial taxonomic di...

In fjord systems, Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) not only constitute a serious problem when affecting the wildlife and ecosystems, but also human health and economic activities related to the marine environment. This is mostly due to a broad spectrum of toxic compounds produced by several members of the phytoplankton. Nevertheless, a deep coverage of...

Phytoplankton cells are excellent biosensors for environmental monitoring and toxicity assessments in different natural systems. Green algae, in particular, appear to be more responsive to copper (Cu) disturbances. This is interesting considering that Cu pollution in coastal environments has increased over the last century, with enormous repercussi...

Phytoplankton cells are excellent biosensors for environmental monitoring and toxicity assessments in different natural systems. Green algae, in particular, appear to be more responsive to copper (Cu) disturbances. This is interesting considering that Cu pollution in coastal environments has increased over the last century, with enormous repercussi...

Anoxic marine zones (AMZs) impact biogeochemical cycles at the global scale, particularly the nitrogen cycle. Key microbial players from AMZs have been identified, but the majority remains unrecognized or uncharacterized. Thirty‐one single‐cell amplified genomes (SAGs) from the eastern tropical North and South Pacific AMZs were sequenced to gain in...

Bacterial community composition and its relationship to oxygen were investigated in the non-sulfidic shelf waters exposed to seasonal upwelling and oxygen deficiency off central Chile. Using 16S rRNA gene clone libraries, terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) and iTAG sequencing analyses of nearly 4 years of monthly sampling th...

La Patagonia Chilena ofrece un paisaje único debido a su geografía y a la transición de sistemas dulceacuícolas y marinos. Sin embargo, se prevé un aumento de las actividades antropogénicas de urbanización, turismo y acuicultura, cuyos efectos en el ecosistema son desconocidos. Por esta razón, es necesario evaluar el estado actual de este sistema p...

In this work the poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) was evaluated to mitigate biocorrosion of conventional stainless steel (SS), grade AISI 304, under exposure to natural seawater. PEDOT was obtained electrochemically onto the steel and coated coupons were immersed in flow-through exposure rig fed with fresh seawater. Corrosion performance of...

La Patagonia Chilena ofrece paisajes memorables, bellos y prístinos, debido a su compleja geografía y la interacción de ecosistemas terrestres, dulceacuícolas y marinos en sus sistemas de fiordos. A pesar que éstos se consideran actualmente como ambientes con bajo impacto antropogénico, se prevé un aumento en la actividad acuicultora y turística en...

Azaspiracids (AZA), a group of lipophilic phycotoxins, are produced by some species of the marine dinophycean genus Azadinium. AZA have recently been detected in shellfish from the Southeast Pacific, however, AZA-producing species have not been recorded yet from the area. This study is the first record of the genus Azadinium and of the species Azad...

Phytoplankton is responsible for most primary production in Antarctica, but the short timescale dynamics of its size structure and composition are poorly described and understood. The abundance and composition of phytoplankton in Fildes Bay, western Antarctic Peninsula, was followed for 12 days during the summer using a range of methods, including...

Several bacteria that are associated with macroalgae can use phycocolloids as a carbon source. Strain INACH002, isolated from decomposing Porphyra (Rhodo-phyta), in King George Island, Antarctica, was screened and characterized for the ability to produce agarase and alginate-lyase enzymatic activities. Our strain INACH002 was identified as a member...

Whereas the initiation and advance of localized corrosion often limits a prolonged application of stainless steel in seawater, the particular conditions that trigger this type of corrosion are not fully understood due to high variability of water parameters and diversity of the biological component. In this study, coupons of AISI 304 and 316L were...

Comparación molecular de un sitio contaminado por metales pesados en el manglar de Estero de Guayaquil, Ecuador, frente a un sitio de manglar cercano no perturbado por metales pesados.

Spatial environmental heterogeneity influences diversity of organisms at different scales. Environmental filtering suggests that local environmental conditions provide habitat-specific scenarios for niche requirements, ultimately determining the composition of local communities. In this work, we analyze the spatial variation of microbial communitie...

Sponge-associated microbial communities include members from the three domains of life. In the case of bacteria, they are diverse, host specific and different from the surrounding seawater. However, little is known about the diversity and specificity of Eukarya and Archaea living in association with marine sponges. This knowledge gap is even greate...

Copper is an essential micronutrient, especially for photosynthetic organisms, but can be toxic at high concentrations. In the past years, coastal waters have been exposed to an increase in copper concentration due to anthropogenic inputs. One well known case is the Chañaral area (Easter South Pacific coast), where a long term coastal copper enrich...

Cáhuil Lagoon in central Chile harbors distinct microbial communities in various solar salterns that are arranged as interconnected ponds with increasing salt concentrations. Here, we report the metagenome of the 3.0- to 0.2-µm fraction of the microbial community present in a crystallizer pond with 34% salinity.

.La construcción de iglesias, templos y catedrales en estilo neogótico en Latinoamérica fue una constante durante el último cuarto del siglo XIX y en las tres primeras décadas del siglo XX. La construcción de estos templos más allá de su arquitectura devino una solución para las necesidades políticas y sociales que tenía la Iglesia. Es a través de...

Antarctic waters are a particular marine environment mainly due to the strong seasonal variations that various parameters are subject to, like light availability and temperature. As in all oceanographic regions, food webs are sustained by photosynthetic microorganisms, which in the case of Antarctic environments seem to be strongly dominated by its...

Antarctic waters are a particular marine environment mainly due to the strong seasonal variations that various parameters are subject to, like light availability and temperature. As in all oceanographic regions, food webs are sustained by photosynthetic microorganisms, which in the case of Antarctic environments seem to be strongly dominated by its...

Among small photosynthetic eukaryotes that play a key role in oceanic food webs, picoplanktonic Mamiellophyceae such as Bathycoccus, Micromonas, and Ostreococcus are particularly important in coastal regions. By using a combination of cell sorting by flow cytometry, whole genome amplification (WGA), and 454 pyrosequencing, we obtained metagenomic d...

Relationship between numbers of reads assigned to each B. prasinos RCC1105 chromosome based on BLASTX-based analysis of contigs (see Materials and Methods for details) or direct assembly with Geneious. (TIF)

Percent of false assignment of O. ‘lucimarinus ’ proteins based on Best BLAST hit (BBH, blue line) or after filtration with gene-specific thresholds for identity and alignment length (FA, red line) as a function of read length (see Materials and Methods for details). (TIF)

Similarity between specific genes from selected gene classes of B. prasinos RCC1105 genome and T142 and T149 Newbler contigs (see Materials and Methods for details). (PDF)

Assignment of Geneious contigs for samples T142 and T149 to specific chromosomes of B. prasinos RCC1105 based on a BLASTX-based algorithm (see Materials and Methods for details). An estimate of coverage was computed as the ratio between the total length of contigs assigned to one chromosome and the length of this chromosome. This value may exceed 1...

Estimation of the number of major haplotypes and of their frequency for selected regions of genes with a high read coverage in both samples. (PDF)

Genotype variability within the 5,646 bp rRNA operon. Positions are given along chromosome 11. Localisation of helix 3 of ITS2 follows Marin and Melkonian [39]. (PDF)

Structure of the rRNA operon. (A) Alignment of the B. prasinos RCC1105 rRNA operon (forward copy) with the two contigs T142_109 and T149_486 that contain it. Both contigs do not contain the 433 bp SSU rRNA gene intron that characterizes RCC1105. Contig T149_486 appears to contain a 468 bp intron at the end of the LSU rRNA gene. (B) Detail of the pu...

Assignment of reads and Geneious contigs for samples T142 and T149 to phylogenetic groups based on BLASTN search of a subset of the nr GenBank database, analyzed by MEGAN (see Materials and Methods for details). The contribution of the best represented groups and of the eukaryotic groups expected to be present in the samples are detailed. (PDF)

Assignment of reads for Pacific picoeukaryote samples T142 to individual chromosomes of O.’ lucimarinus’ using Geneious Assembler (see Materials and Methods for details). (PDF)

Genotypic variability of the rRNA operon. T142 and T149 reads were directly assembled with Geneious to the B. prasinos RCC1105 rRNA operon. (A) Individual reads for sample T142 in the region of the SSU rRNA intron present in the genome of RCC 1105. The arrow points to a read with a sequence nearly identical to the intron sequence. (B) Individual re...

SSU rRNA genes detected in Geneious contigs for samples T142 and T149. (PDF)

Assignment of Geneious contigs for samples T142 and T149 to reference genomes of microalgae, bacteria and viruses based on a BLASTX-based algorithm (see Materials and Methods for details). (PDF)

List of reference genomes used for BLASTX analysis of contigs. (PDF)

Among small photosynthetic eukaryotes that play a key role in oceanic food webs, picoplanktonic Mamiellophyceae such as Bathycoccus, Micromonas, and Ostreococcus are particularly important in coastal regions. By using a combination of cell sorting by flow cytometry, whole genome amplification (WGA), and 454 pyrosequencing, we obtained metagenomic d...

Copper has a dual role for organisms, both as micronutrient and toxic element. Copper mining activities have an enormous ecological impact because of the extraction process and the consequent release of copper-containing waste materials to the environment. In northern Chile, mainly in the Chañaral coastal area, this phenomenon is clearly evident. T...

We studied the microbial diversity and parts of the sulfur cycle in anoxic sediments at two marine observation stations of the FONDAP/COPAS research program on the Chilean upwelling system in Concepcion Bay (Station 7 and Station C1, 36° 36.5′ S; 73° W and 36° 31.747′ S; 72°57′ W respectively). DNA was extracted and purified from mud samples, so th...

We develop an innovative mathematical mobile learning activity for 12 year old students, who are asked to coordinate themselves physically in terms of given distances with respect to two given points in an outdoor setting. The development of the outdoor activity poses pedagogical as well as technological design challenges. In this paper, we elabora...

In the last decades, the worldwide increase in copper wastes release by industrial activities like mining has driven environmental metal contents to toxic levels. For this reason, the study of the biological copper-resistance mechanisms in natural environments is important. Therefore, an appropriate molecular tool for the detection and tracking of...

Marine bacterial communities isolated from the water column, sediment, the rock surface, and the green seaweed Ulva compressa were studied in an intertidal ecosystem. The study area included a coastal zone chronically affected by copper mine waste disposals. Bacterial community composition was analyzed by terminal restriction fragment length polymo...

Cupriavidus necator JMP134 is a model for chloroaromatics biodegradation, capable of mineralizing 2,4-D, halobenzoates, chlorophenols and nitrophenols, among other aromatic compounds. We performed the metabolic reconstruction of aromatics degradation, linking the catabolic abilities predicted in silico from the complete genome sequence with the ran...

The aim of this paper was to study the influence of microbial biofilms on the high copper levels measured in the drinking water of rural houses. Drinking water parameters and copper pipe surfaces were analysed in the copper plumbing systems of rural and urban houses. The water in rural houses had pH values of 6.2 and alkalinity values of 63 mg/L as...

In 2006, the Agouron Institute, in cooperation with the University of Hawaii and the Center for Microbial Oceanography: Research and Education (C-MORE), lauched an inaugural summer course in microbial oceanography. This course allowed 12 students to explore the dynamic and fundamental role marine microbes play in shaping ocean ecology and biogeoche...

The diterpenoid kaurenoic acid is the main component of the resin from the medicinal plant Pseudognaphalium vira vira. As some diterpenoids have antimicrobial properties, the effect of this resin and the kaurenoic acid on soil bacteria was studied. The resin of P. vira vira and purified kaurenoic acid were two to four times more effective as antiba...

To study the effect that copper residues exert on bacterial communities and the ability of bacteria to colonize different microhabitats in abandoned tailing dumps. We used the terminal-restriction fragment length polymorphism technique, a culture-independent molecular approach based on PCR amplification of ribosomal genes, to compare the structure...

Cupriavidus necator JMP134(pJP4) harbors a catabolic plasmid, pJP4, which confers the ability to grow on chloroaromatic compounds. Repeated growth on 3-chlorobenzoate (3-CB) results in selection of a recombinant strain, which degrades 3-CB better but no longer grows on 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetate (2,4-D). We have previously proposed that this phenot...

Ralstonia eutropha JMP134 (pJP4) is a useful model for the study of bacterial degradation of substituted aromatic pollutants. Several key degrading capabilities, encoded by tfd genes, are located in the 88 kb, self-transmissible, IncP-1 beta plasmid pJP4. The complete sequence of the 87,688 nucleotides of pJP4, encoding 83 open reading frames (ORFs...

97 La expansión del maxilar con ayuda quirúrgica es desde hace un tiempo un procedimiento muy co-mún en la práctica ortodóncica. Se trata de una téc-nica que se realiza como procedimiento quirúrgico único o como primer paso para una posterior cirugía ortognática más ambiciosa. Desde el primer momento la parte técnica de la cirugía suscitó un debate...

Resumen La donación del archivo Pardo Gil-Taboada al del Reino de Galicia requería establecer la ge-nealogía de quienes originaron tales documen-tos. Estos apuntes intentan trazar el perfil de una familia hidalga desde que empezó a dejar señales de su existencia hasta bien entrado el siglo XX. Superar la simple enumeración de personas -"como si la...

EADS Astrium has developed the Eurobot Control Station ECoS in the frame of the Eurobot WET Model project (Weightless Environmental Test) released by the European Space Agency in 2003. ECoS is the main user interface to the robot for generating, validating and executing mission timelines as well as for controlling manually movable subsystems such a...

Comenzaré por negar la existencia de siete sacramentos, y, por el momento, propondré sólo tres: el bautismo, la penitencia y el pan. Todos ellos se han reducido por obra y gracia de la curia romana a una mísera cautividad, y la iglesia ha sido totalmente despojada de su libertad.

In a continuous activated sludge (AS) system treating urban wastewater operated with short aeration cycles the simultaneous removal of organic matter, total nitrogen and phosphorous has been attained. The pilot plant, with a reactor volume of 285 L, removed up to 90% of total and soluble COD, 90% of total N and 70% of phosphorous from the influent...

RESUMEN INTRODUCCIÓN: Son múltiples e importantes las ventajas de la lactancia materna, tanto para la madre como para el bebé en cuanto a su salud se refiere. Desde mayo de 2006 se están desarrollando talleres de lactancia materna en los centros de salud de "La Solana", "La Algodonera" y "Cebolla", con el fin de potenciar la labor que desde hace añ...

Resumen: En el Cádiz de 1812 que daría nacimiento a la Constitución de la que ahora celebramos el segundo centenario se pusieron de relieve las dos principales cuestiones que serían debatidas a lo largo de toda la centuria: la deuda pública y el comercio internacional. Problemas que no pudieron ser atendidos durante las dos primeras décadas del sig...

Se conoce con el nombre de demócratas en las Cortes constituyentes de 1869 a todos aquellos que, habiendo formado parte del partido demócrata que fundó José María Orense en 1849, optaron por la solución monárquica para España, después de la revolución de septiembre de 1868. Se separaron así de la mayoría de sus compañeros de avatares políticos que...

97 Dos son los temas que irán ligados inevitablemente al recuerdo del Dr. Ronald Roth: el perfeccionamiento de la aparatología de arco recto inicialmente desarrollada por el Dr. Larry Andrews y la introducción, de forma reconocida, de los conceptos de oclusión funcional relacionados con los trata-mientos de ortodoncia. Sobre ambos tratan los cinco...

In recent years, mobile and context-aware technologies have been used in an attempt to enhance students" formal and informal learning experiences both in the classroom and outdoor settings. Such technologies have supported teaching and learning in a variety of subjects. In this paper, we present the ongoing research efforts in our Geometry Mobile (...

Resumen Este artículo presenta un prefacio acerca de los bienes eclesiásticos y las conse-cuencias que resultan en el ambiente pastoral, además del cumplimiento que de-biera realizar cada fiel ante el Quinto Mandamiento de la Iglesia Católica. Luego se desarrolla, bajo tres subtítulos, la evolución del sistema que recaudaba montos aportados por el...

Aspectos generales El estudio geográfico de un proceso electoral es un hecho poco frecuente todavía en España por razones obvias, al llevar poco tiempo establecido el régimen democrá-tico. A alguno podrá extrañarle que esto pueda ser estudiado por geógrafos o que tenga algún interés para esta disciplina. Tales dudas se despejan si consideramos que...