Aurora Gaxiola's research while affiliated with Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and other places

Publications (54)

Article
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Ecosystems provide a variety of benefits to human society and humanity’s utilization of ecosystems affects their composition, structure, and functions. Global change drivers demand us to study the interactions between ecological and social systems, and advise strategies to protect the large fraction of Chilean unique ecosystems. Long-term research...
Article
1. Leaf litter decomposition is a key process for nutrient cycling with broad ecosystem-level consequences. However, we still cannot explain an important amount of the observed variability in decomposition rates. Therefore, a mechanistic model of how litter quality impacts the metabolic capacity of microbial decomposers to degrade litter at a given...
Article
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This paper contributes to a critical re-reading of the notion of climate services. It does so by problematizing the discontinuity between young people’s commitment to climate change, and the lack of a common vision regarding climate policy among governments. In this essay, youth commitment is characterized in terms of participation in the Global Yo...
Technical Report
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El presente estudio implementa la hoja de ruta denominada “gran impulso para la sostenibilidad” propuesta por la CEPAL utilizando a Chile como caso de estudio. La ruta se genera adoptando una perspectiva de límites planetarios para calcular las brechas ambientales de Chile y con miras a la identificación de políticas públicas que fomenten el desarr...
Article
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Cushion plants are specialized keystone species of alpine environments that can have a positive effect on ecosystem structure and function. However, we know relatively little about how cushion plants regulate the diversity and composition of soil microbial communities, major drivers of soil processes and ecosystem functioning. Identifying what fact...
Article
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Litter decomposition is a key process for carbon and nutrient cycling in terrestrial ecosystems and is mainly controlled by environmental conditions, substrate quantity, and quality as well as microbial community abundance and composition. In particular, the effects of climate and atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition on litter decomposition and its...
Article
Forest ecosystems are recognized for their large capacity to store carbon (C) in their aboveground and below-ground biomass and soil pools. While the distribution of C among ecosystem pools has been extensively studied, less is known about nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) pools and how these stocks relate to each other. There is also a need to under...
Article
Forest fires can cause great changes in the composition, structure and functioning of forest ecosystems. We stud- ied the effects of a fire that occurred >50 years ago in a temperate rainforest that caused flooding conditions in a Placic Andosol to evaluate how long these effects last; we hypothesized that the effects of fire on the soil green- hou...
Article
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Arid ecosystems are strongly limited by water availability, and precipitation plays a major role in the dynamics of all species in arid regions, as well as the ecosystem processes that occur there. However, understanding how biotic interactions mediate long‐term responses of dryland ecosystems to rainfall remains very fragmented. We report on a uni...
Article
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Cushion plants are life forms with a hemispherical or mat‐like, prostrate canopy well adapted to the extreme conditions of cold regions that have appealed to scientists for their ability to cope with extreme environments in most mountains, arctic, and subantarctic regions of the world. They can buffer the effects of low temperature and drought and...
Technical Report
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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...
Article
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Plant-soil feedbacks (PSFs) are interactions among plants, soil organisms, and abiotic soil conditions that influence plant performance, plant species diversity, and community structure, ultimately driving ecosystem processes. We review how climate change will alter PSFs and their potential consequences for ecosystem functioning. Climate change inf...
Article
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Plant functional strategies are usually accomplished through the simultaneous expression of different traits, and hence their correlations should be promoted by natural selection. The adaptive value of correlations among leaf functional traits, however, has not been assessed in natural populations. We estimated intraspecific variation in leaf funct...
Technical Report
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Se entiende como acción post-incendio al conjunto de medidas que se toman inmediatamente después de un incendio y que permiten generar un diagnóstico y priorizar la asignación de recursos en base a los riesgos ecológicos y sociales existentes. En el contexto de los incendios en Chile, el documento se presenta como una propuesta al desarrollo de pol...
Article
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Through litter decomposition enormous amounts of carbon is emitted to the atmosphere. Numerous large-scale decomposition experiments have been conducted focusing on this fundamental soil process in order to understand the controls on the terrestrial carbon transfer to the atmosphere. However, previous studies were mostly based on site-specific litt...
Article
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Ecosystems where carbon fluxes are being monitored on a global scale are strongly biased toward temperate Northern Hemisphere latitudes. However, forest and moorland ecosystems in the Southern Hemisphere may contribute significantly to the global and regional C balance and are affected by different climate systems. Here, we present the first data f...
Article
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Peatlands exhibit highly characteristic ecological traits and are unique complex ecosystems. Nevertheless, knowledge about southern South American peatlands is very limited. In this study, we analyzed species composition of bryophytes and lichens of Southern Hemisphere peatlands, specifically from eight peatlands of Isla Grande de Chiloé (Chiloé Is...
Article
Full-text available
Through litter decomposition enormous amount of carbon is emitted to the atmosphere. Numerous large-scale decomposition experiments have been conducted focusing on this fundamental soil process in order to understand the controls on the terrestrial carbon transfer to the atmosphere. However, previous studies were mostly based on site-specific litte...
Article
Full-text available
Through litter decomposition enormous amounts of carbon is emitted to the atmosphere. Numerous large-scale decomposition experiments have been conducted focusing on this fundamental soil process in order to under-stand the controls on the terrestrial carbon transfer to the atmosphere. However, previous studies were mostly based on site-specific litt...
Article
Past research has demonstrated that decreased biodiversity often reduces ecosystem productivity, but variation in the shape of biodiversity-ecosystem function (BEF) relationships begets the need for a deeper mechanistic understanding of what drives these patterns. While mechanisms involving competition are often invoked, the role of facilitation is...
Article
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During soil development, bacteria and fungi can be differentially affected by changes in soil biogeochemistry. Since the chemistry of parent material affects soil pH , nutrient availability, and indirectly litter quality, we hypothesize that parent material has an important influence on microbial community patterns during long‐term soil development...
Article
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Scientists are increasingly interested in the evolutionary responses of organisms to unpredictable, variable, and extreme climate changes. In semiarid environments, inter-annual variability in the frequency and amount of rainfall affects both the growth and recruitment of plant species, especially annuals. In these inherently variable environments,...
Article
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We used fossil and phylogenetic evidence to reconstruct climatic niche evolution in Nothofagus, a Gondwana genus distributed in tropical and temperate latitudes. To assess whether the modern distribution of the genus can be explained by the tropical conservatism hypothesis, we tested three predictions: (1) species from all Nothofagus subgenera coex...
Article
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Understanding the long-term impacts of invasive mammalian browsers and granivores in mixed forests is difficult due to the many processes potentially affecting the demography of long-lived trees. We constructed individual-based spatially explicit simulation models of two mixed conifer–angiosperm forests, growing on soils of contrasting phosphorus (P...
Article
Nitrogen and phosphorus are the main elements limiting net primary production in terrestrial ecosystems. When growing in nutrient-poor soils, plants develop physiological mechanisms to conserve nutrients, such as reabsorbing elements from senescing foliage (i.e. nutrient retranslocation). We investigated the changes in soil N and P in post-fire suc...
Article
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Differences in litter quality, microbial activity or abiotic conditions cannot fully account for the variability in decomposition rates observed in semiarid ecosystems. Here we tested the role of variation in litter quality, water supply, and UV radiation as drivers of litter decomposition in arid lands. And show that carry-over effects of litter p...
Article
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Salvage logging has been described as a controversial environmental practice in developed countries, but in developing countries this conflict has not been evaluated. We describe salvage logging of Fitzroya cupressoides, an endemic conifer of the South American temperate forests. In Chile, the Huilliche—an ethnical group—extract deadwood of Fitzroy...
Article
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The research carried out in the three foundational sites of the Chilean Long-Term Socio-Ecological Research Network (LTSER-Chile) aims to answer questions that reflect the regional context in which each site is immersed. The formation of the network in 2008 provided an opportunity to establish comparative studies and analyse the effects of the diff...
Article
Recent empirical and theoretical analyses have suggested that biomes could correspond to alternative equilibrium states; one such example is the transition between forest, savanna and treeless states.Fire supposes to be a key functional component of savanna ecosystems and is a powerful predictor of tree cover that can differentiate between forest a...
Conference Paper
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Background/Question/Methods . In unpredictable and temporally variable environments, evolution should select for life-history strategies to survive challenging times and to capitalize on times of resource availability. In semiarid environments, variability in the frequency and strength of rainfall pulses controls annual plant recruitment. Under s...
Conference Paper
Background/Question/Methods Cloud cover is a major and nearly permanent feature (80% persistence) of the eastern Pacific Ocean in the arid and semiarid continental margin of South America. The cloud field is maintained at a fixed elevation (above 600 m) by a thermal inversion, providing the main or the only source of humidity for a chain of highl...
Conference Paper
Background/Question/Methods Nitrogen (N) and Phosphorus (P) are major cellular components in consumer organisms and, limitations in their availability and accessibility can strongly affect growth and development, as well as life history strategies and population dynamics of consumer species. In environments where periodic disturbances induce form...
Article
Nucleation is a successional process in which extant vegetation facilitates seed dispersal and recruitment of other individuals and species around focal points in the landscape, leading to ecosystem recovery. This is an important process in disturbed sites where regeneration is limited by abiotic conditions or restrictive seed dispersal. We investi...
Conference Paper
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Background/Question/Methods Climate change and nutrient deposition, as a consequence of human activity, are two major drivers of future global change. One prediction related to climate change is that precipitation variability will increase in arid semiarid ecosystems, where water is generally the main limiting resource. However, Soil nitrogen ava...
Conference Paper
Background/Question/Methods What factors drive the observed changes in the number of coexisting species across different spatial and temporal scales? This is a fundamental, albeit vexing, question in ecology. Most answers to this question emphasize the role of abiotic factors (e.g., area, temperature, energy) as drivers of diversity patterns. How...
Conference Paper
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Background/Question/Methods Nucleated regeneration is a specific model of succession whereby colonising or remnant plants, occurring in discrete patches, facilitate the establishment of other species by providing suitable microsites for seed accumulation, germination, and subsequent growth of seedlings. The combination of the perch effect and fac...
Article
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Ecology Letters (2011) 14: 1227–1235 Extreme climatic events represent disturbances that change the availability of resources. We studied their effects on annual plant assemblages in a semi-arid ecosystem in north-central Chile. We analysed 130 years of precipitation data using generalised extreme-value distribution to determine extreme events, and...
Conference Paper
Background/Question/Methods Shade tolerance is an ontogenetically variable life history trait evolved as a response of long-lived trees to prevailing disturbance regimes (canopy turnover rate). Understanding shade tolerance patterns is critical to the success of forestry methods that seek to enhance stand regeneration after logging. Post-logging...
Conference Paper
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Background/Question/Methods The need to understand global change and biodiversity loss has promoted ecological studies on broad spatial and temporal scales. Thus, long-term ecological research (LTER) has served as a successful organizing framework to guide research agendas designed to address meaningful ecological phenomena and questions at the s...
Article
Aim The relationship between the proportion of species with an entire leaf margin (pE) and mean annual temperature (MAT) is one of the most powerful tools for estimating palaeotemperatures. However, phylogenetic and phytogeographic constraints on this relationship have remained unexplored. Here we investigate the pE–MAT relationship for modern flor...
Article
1. During retrogressive succession, vegetation shifts from taller forests with higher species richness to shorter woody communities of lower diversity. Studies of soil chronosequences have emphasized the role of phosphorus (P) depletion in driving these changes in community structure and composition, but neglected the possible role of poor drainage...
Article
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Senda Darwin Biological Station (SDBS) is a field research center immersed in the rural landscape of northern Chiloé island (42º S), where remnant patches of the original evergreen forests coexist with open pastures, secondary successional shrublands, Sphagnum bogs, Eucalyptus plantations and other anthropogenic cover types, constituting an agricul...
Article
Full-text available
Senda Darwin Biological Station (SDBS) is a field research center immersed in the rural landscape of northern Chiloé island (42° S), where remnant patches of the original evergreen forests coexist with open pastures, secondary successional shrublands, Sphagnum bogs, Eucalyptus plantations and other anthropogenic cover types, constituting an agricul...
Chapter
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A structural and compositional definition of old-growth forest is presented, which places emphasis on the lack of recurrent human impact, the presence of a shade-tolerant canopy with emergent pioneers, and a patch area that minimises edge effects. Using this definition, we provide an overview of the current conservation status, relevance of plant–a...
Article
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Seedling regeneration on forest floors is often impaired by competition with established plants. In some lowland temperate rain forests, tree fern trunks provide safe sites on which tree species establish, and grow large enough to take root in the ground and persist. Here we explore the competitive and facilitative effects of two tree fern species,...
Article
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Latin America (including Mexico and Central and South America) hosts a substantial proportion of global biodiversity, but suffers from increasing rates of deforestation, land degradation, and dryland expansion. Low-cost modification of local management practices integrating ecological restoration could play a major role in abating ecosystem degrada...

Citations

... Forbs have higher nutrient content than grasses and less structural components like silica (Bråthen et al., 2021) being easier to decompose (Zhang et al., 2022). Litter quality has been shown to be the predominant factor controlling decomposition (Ayres et al., 2009;Murúa and Gaxiola, 2023), explaining >60% of the variability in decomposition rate at a global scale (Djukic et al., 2018). Therefore, communities with higher proportion of forbs, like the Atlas and Sierra Nevada, should have less recalcitrant litter (Bråthen et al., 2021), easier to decompose than in the Alps and Pyrenees. ...
... A recent study of carbon fluxes in a North-western Patagonian evergreen forest from southern South America (42°S) showed lower net ecosystem exchange (NEE), but higher biological activity (higher gross primary productivity and ecosystem respiration) compared to rainforests in the Northern Hemisphere (Perez-Quezada et al., 2018). This same forest was also found to store the largest C stock in the soil among temperate rainforests in the world (Perez-Quezada et al., 2021). ...
... We found that for the genus Azorella, it is the first time that bacteria of the genus Pseudoarthrobacter are detected. Previously, works such as those of Rodríguez-Echeverría et al. (2021) had detected abundant phyla such as actinobacteria for A. compacta and A. madreporica. However, among the bacteria identified, no actinobacteria were reported for A. prolifera. ...
... Likewise, it constitutes an area of ancestral connection between the indigenous peoples and nature. To preserve the tradition and customary coastal uses, local communities are claiming the management of the Guafo Island [33]. These island dwellers between the waters surrounding the island and the Gulf of Corcovado have also been considered for the delimitation of the coastal zones. ...
... The difficulty of sampling all host species from each of our trapping grids prevented spatiotemporal replication of our phylogenetic analyses, but cross-site comparisons of localized phylosymbiotic patterns would be instructive in light of prior work that has shown diets and microbiomes differ among populations (Amato et al., 2013. Both within and among small-mammal populations, individual-level variation in body size and body condition can occur through time as resource availability, diet quality, and population density vary (Farías et al., 2021;Long et al., 2017). Similarly, microbial communities comprise considerable genetic variation both within and among bacterial taxa that cannot be resolved using ...
... Wildfires are one of the most crucial disruptions that cause notable changes in the structure and function of forest ecosystems (Perez-Quezada et al., 2021). For example, it can mediate ecosystem dynamics and the carbon (C) cycle (Chen et al., 2020;Seidl et al., 2017). ...
... No obstante, en este estudio se observó que el hedor a cadáver expelido por la especie de planta S. chamaecyparissus, atraía a una gran cantidad de dípteros necrófagos y saprófagos de la familia Calliphoridae, y en que estos existían en un gran número en el entorno. Probablemente el cambio climático (Farré-Armengol et al., 2013;Kalin et al., 2019) y el escaso número de otros polinizadores como especies de Apidae, S. chamaecyparissus ha debido sintetizar y expeler nuevos aromas con el fin de atraer a otras especies de insectos para ser polinizadas (Hoballah et al., 2004;Benitez et al., 2012;Farré-Armengol et al., 2013) o probablemente existe una alteración de la discriminación de odorantes captados por el polinizador (Stopfer et al.,1997). Nosotros pensamos que son insectos polinizadores oportunistas y que debido a la escases de recompensas del ecosistema en que ha sido alterado o modificado, estos insectos han debido frecuentar este tipo de plantas con el fin de abastecerse del alimento proporcionado por S. chamaecyparissus. ...
... Yareta is documented in the dry and salt puna ecoregions and can grow at elevations between 3800 and 5200 masl. In Peru, it is not only typical for the dry puna but is also found in the periglacial zone (i.e., zona periglaciar) (Pugnaire et al., 2020;Ministerio del Ambiente, 2015, 2018. Yareta is a slow-growing cushion plant that grows on north slopes in arid and cold climates in volcanic landscapes and can reach thousands of years of age 2 (Pugnaire et al., 2020;Kleier et al., 2015;Kleier and Rundel, 2004;Ralph, 1978). ...
... However, Zhang et al. (2022) found that the relationship between mean annual precipitation and EMF exhibited an initial increasing and subsequent decreasing trend along an elevational gradient. In addition, most studies exploring the effects of climate factors on EMF have focused only on soil or plants (Zhang et al. 2022), ignoring the interaction of plants and soil that influence EMF in natural ecosystems (Pugnaire et al. 2019). Currently, studies on EMF predominantly focus on grassland ecosystems (Byrnes et al. 2014;Zhang et al. 2022). ...
... One key component in global carbon cycling is organic matter decomposition, where decomposer organisms and climatic variables, such as temperature and water availability, transform complex organic molecules into simpler molecules (Findlay, 2013), ushering the continuation of the carbon cycle. Decomposition of plant litter contributes greatly to ecosystem respiration and is responsible for a large part of carbon emission (Djukic et al., 2018). Decomposition processes lead to break down of complex molecules (short-term carbon release), but also to the stabilization of labile molecules (transformation of a fraction of labile molecules into recalcitrant molecules). ...