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.