ACTIVITIES ORGANISED DURING DARWIN PROJECT

Use of Puerto Blest field station and biodiversity laboratory

The Puerto Blest field station, which has been equipped and furnished by the project, continues to be in high demand and is regularly visited by student groups, particularly from UNC. A booking system is now in operation. UNC has purchased additional furniture for the field station. This investment by UNC into the field station would never have happened had the Darwin Initiative not first put resources into the field station to make it viable. For the second year, the field station has also been used by an international workshop on tree ring analysis. The international Southern Connections conference in 2010 has booked the field station for a field excursion for delegates. Additional items of capital equipment have been purchased specifically for the imaging facility, for the Biodiversity Laboratory and to replace items of field equipment lost or damaged. The imaging equipment installed at ILPLA has experienced high demand from project partners, students and staff at ILPLA and UNLP and to illustrate the field guide under preparation. A booking system for the equipment has been instigated.

Inventory of freshwater insects

A large number of adult and larval insects were collected from 125 different localities during the 2008/2009 field season in the southern part of NHNP. This completes our planned survey of wetland habitats in NHNP. Once again the summer was relatively dry and some wetland habitats had dried up and streams were running with low water. The material will be sorted during the remaining five months of the project and sent to the specialists for identification. GPS, water chemistry and environmental details of all 125 localities sampled during the 2008/2009 field campaign have been data-based. Species lists have been compiled and data-based for Chironomidae and Coleoptera collected during 2007/2008. Work is continuing on other insects groups collected during the second field season.

Identification guides

Two non-specialist leaflet on freshwater insects of NHNP have been published and is available at interpretation centres around NHNP and has also been sent to local schools. In addition we have produced a poster and a 2009 calendar on wetlands and freshwater insects which are on display around NHNP and are available for purchase by visitors to NHNP (see Annex 6). Project partners have continued to produce specialist keys, checklists and taxonomic works during the year and a non-specialist field guide to freshwater insects of Patagonia is currently in an advanced stage of development. We expect to complete this before the end of the project.

Capital equipment, laboratories and field station

Most capital equipment purchases were made earlier in the project, however, some supplementary equipment has been purchased for the digital imaging facility at ILPLA and also to replace field equipment lost or damaged during the field season

Training courses

Fifteen students attended a course on chironomid taxonomy and ecology at UNLP during October 2008. Course tutors were Donato and Massaferro. Massaferro also teaches chironomids on two final year undergraduate courses at University of Buenos Aires to about 50 students. Undergraduate courses are also taught by Spinelli, Donato and Muzon at UNLP drawing on work done in the project. NHNP Rangers continued to receive training in biomonitoring and water chemistry techniques. These rangers now routinely record water chemistry and GPS data at each wetland site they visit during the course of their patrol work in NHNP.

Freshwater insect collections

Curation and databasing of the freshwater insect collection at UNLP continues and the collections will be added to during the coming year.

Freshwater insect monitoring programme

The Rio Villegas biomonitoring programme, carried out by project- trained APN Rangers, began during this year. This work also forms part of PhD thesis by a UNLP student (Melina Mauad) under the supervision of Spinelli. The river has recently become seriously polluted by effluent from a nearby town. The river biota is severely depleted downstream of the town. The population of the town has significantly increased recently and there are no restrictions in place regarding discharges into the river. APN supports the biomonitoring initiative and our staff have visited local schools to raise awareness. However, much of the town is a shanty with no sewage treatment facilities.

Mon, 2009-06-15 15:23 -- Anonymous (not verified)
Scratchpads developed and conceived by (alphabetical): Ed Baker, Katherine Bouton Alice Heaton Dimitris Koureas, Laurence Livermore, Dave Roberts, Simon Rycroft, Ben Scott, Vince Smith