Project
© Damián Ganime
© Damián Ganime
The bird and mammal communities of Patagonia have been relatively understudied. The logistical deployment of the Patagonia Program, driven by the management of the Hooded Grebe Project, provided us with the tools to advance our knowledge of these communities. Also, getting to know populations and communities of species that are not necessarily threatened helps us to understand environmental situations, changes and transformations. Our work with the communities has served as a way to provide important information for decision makers.
patagonia in action program
Georgina Squartini
Active
The objective of this line of research is to generate a characterization of the waterfowl assemblages that use the wetlands of the basaltic plateaus of western Santa Cruz province, coexisting with the Hooded Grebe. For this we applied multi-scale and meta-community approaches, considering environmental, ecological and climatic parameters. Specifically, we aim to characterize the regional composition and structure, as well as to evaluate the spatial structure at two scales: within each plateau and between plateaus, considering environmental and ecological variables. In addition, we want to know the temporal structure of the assemblages at intra-annual or seasonal and interannual scales, considering environmental and climatic variables. Finally, we seek to integrate and interpret the results obtained from the assemblage structures in the framework of metacommunity theory, considering together the temporal and spatial scales mentioned above.
The research will be based on data collected in basaltic plateaus along the central-western region of Santa Cruz, Argentina. The composition and structure of birds will be analyzed as a function of environmental, spatial and temporal variables. Statistical analyses such as ANOSIM, ISA, NMDS, PERMANOVA, and generalized linear mixed models will be used, depending on the nature of the data. Finally, taking into account the results obtained previously, metacommunity theory will be used to evaluate the influence of spatial and environmental processes on β-diversity, decomposing this diversity into different causal components.
This project covers at least ten plateaus located in the central-western region of the province of Santa Cruz. This includes sites belonging to different National Parks.
- Alejandro Gatto - Centro Patagónico (CENPAT) - CONICET.
To date, more than 6500 waterfowl censuses have been collected from more than 800 lakes throughout the region. The data are entered into a spreadsheet that is then refined to perform the relevant analyses for each objective.
© Bobby Wilcox
© Eliseo Misciu
© Pablo Hernández
© Pablo Hernández
Lali Fasola & Kini Roesler
Active
Land use planning involves delimiting, based on relevant information (topography, hydrology, sociology, ecology), the way in which human occupation and land use should be organized in space to guarantee the correct development of human activities and the correct use of natural resources. In the desired land use planning, each activity should be located and developed in areas where its impact is minimized and its benefit maximized. Some authors suggest that there is a hierarchy in the way to select the right sites for these developments: A) Impact prevention: at a pre-construction stage; B) Impact reduction: in the post-construction period through damage mitigation strategies; C) Compensation of losses. This work sought to provide preliminary information useful for land use planning in the province of Santa Cruz, mainly, but not only, in the face of the advance of wind developments, based on a territorial prioritization model based on distribution models of the province's avifauna and its conservation value taken from pre-existing databases. The product should not be considered as a definitive tool or as an impact study, but as an initial guide to detect areas of higher risk and areas with potentially lower impact on biodiversity conservation.
The analysis focuses on the province of Santa Cruz, where two ecoregions are represented: 1) Patagonian steppe; and 2) Patagonian forests. The largest ecoregion is the Patagonian Steppe, which covers more than 90% of the Santa Cruz territory. Although 280 bird species have been recorded in the province of Santa Cruz (eBird, 2023), a selection was made of the 72 species that have frequent records in the province. We created a presence-absence dataset for each of the 72 species within the boundaries of Santa Cruz province, in order to be used for the creation of distribution models. Data were obtained exclusively from the eBird platform. We estimated the potential distribution of each selected species ("target species") by using species distribution models that use georeferenced records associated with climatic and environmental layers to predict distributions. Zonation 4.0 spatial prioritization software was used for the territorial prioritization model. This software analyzes spatial information on species, habitats, ecosystem services and any other georeferenced information that may influence decisions to be made for territorial prioritization. The main product of Zonation is a layer in raster format whose cells have a value in a prioritization ranking that was built based on the information provided to Zonation regarding the presence and conservation value of species present in those cells or habitats that occupy it.
The most notable results were to obtain area sensitivity maps for the entire province. This was reflected in a report submitted to the province of Santa Cruz as part of the collaborative work with the Secretary of State for the Environment of that province. These results were also presented at the Argentine Ornithological Meeting (2024) and sent for publication.
© Damián Ganime
© Morena Peltzer
© Pablo Hernández
© Pablo Hernández
Sabrina Villalba
Active
The aim of this work is to analyze the influence of environmental, altitudinal, longitudinal, latitudinal, climatic and anthropogenic gradients on the structure of micromammal communities in the plateau of Lake Buenos Aires and surrounding areas, Santa Cruz province. Specifically, we seek to establish which species are present in the different gradients of the Lake Buenos Aires Plateau. In turn, we want to characterize the species diversity of micromammal communities, analyze the influence of environmental and climatic variables on the richness and abundance of micromammal species, and finally, evaluate whether the presence of human constructions (estancias, posts, etc.) influences the specific richness, relative abundance and species composition of micromammal species.
The work will be carried out on altitudinal, latitudinal and longitude gradients of the Lake Buenos Aires plateau, where some sites are located within the Patagonia National Park. We will work in three types of gradients: altitudinal, longitudinal and latitudinal. At each site we capture micromammals using Sherman type live traps and for the capture of bats we use six mist nets. At the same time, we searched for possible shelters where we recorded the type of shelter, number of specimens present and species. On the other hand, data will be obtained from samples of pellets of birds of prey to detect rare species. On the other hand, in bats we will use the acoustic recording technique which is especially useful for detecting insectivorous species, the only ones present in the study area that records echolocation signals. The identification of the species is possible thanks to the particular acoustic characteristics of each one of them, which will be analyzed through different software. The data collected will be used to relate the presence of micromammals with environmental and anthropogenic variables through the use of Geographic Information System software.
Since 2019 we conducted surveys in 11 sites along the different gradients, in which we recorded about 13 species of rodents and 2 of bats, added to the acoustic records that are under review. In this season we had a high number of captures, especially of rodents, in reference to the rest of the previous sampling periods. This may be due to different factors such as availability of resources for these species, changes in environmental conditions after a year without snow and human factors in the application of sampling techniques. As for bats, Estancia La Ascensión continues to be the site where we obtain specimens, since there is a diversity of refuges for these species. So far, the ecological studies that have been carried out in Patagonia have been developed at a regional scale, providing little detailed information on the biodiversity of micromammals at smaller scales. Therefore, this work aims to provide updated information on the diversity of bats, rodents and marsupials in the province of Santa Cruz, more specifically in the area of the Lake Buenos Aires Plateau. It can provide inputs for the design of conservation strategies for this important area of Southern Patagonia. In the coming seasons we still have several sites to monitor in the higher areas and in the west of the MLBA in order to complete the most representative points of the gradients proposed in our objectives. At the same time, we continue processing pellet samples to indirectly incorporate data on micromammal species and we will advance in the analysis of the information obtained so far.
southern long-eared bat
Histiotus magellanicus
Little long-eared bat
red hairy bat
chilean murcielaguito
common molosser
patagonian weasel
woolly mouse
red mouse
olive mouse
patagonian mouse
corn mouse
Patagonian silky trout
common yellowtail trout
chinchilla rat of patagonia
mole mouse
common parakeet
patagonian pericote
The main threats to this group of mammals are ignorance and bad press, especially in bats. The myths that have been created around them for years make their important role in nature to be ignored.
© Damián Ganime
© Eliseo Misciu
© Damián Ganime
© Sabrina Villalba
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