Some local fauna and flora

 Chiton granosus (in the middle) and Jehlius cirratus (barnacles)

 Littorina peruviana

 Friendly lizard

 Porphyra algae

 Phymactis sp. (Anemone) and Tegula sp. (Gastropod)

Molluscs and kelps

 Tiuques (Bird of pray Milvago chimango chimango)

 Seagulls and cormorants

Heliaster helianthus (Sol de mar, Echinodermata)

Two Heliaster helianthus

First day of sampling

We have our first real sampling day today. Everything seem to be running smoothly; now those algae should just start to grow.

The cubitainers under the sun screen

Measuring primary production and respiration

Nice view from the lab

El loco

Harvest intensities of marine resources are causing remarkable changes in marine and intertidal communities. In general, fish stocks have decreased, leading to increasing number of endangered species, especially fish at higher trophic levels and those with high economic value.

Recently, ecologists have considered including humans as, not only modifiers, but also as top predators in the food web models. It is known that many top-down structured communities have cascading effects. When this occurs, persistent and high intensity predation can directly or indirectly affect the whole food web to lower trophic levels, causing community changes and potentially leading to extinctions. Therefore ecologists insist in the importance of protected or controlled harvest marine areas, where human activities are controlled or directly restricted.

Dr. Juan Carlos Castilla (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and Margalef prize 2011) has studied the human disturbance effect over “el loco”, a valuable Chilean carnivorous gastropod (Concholepas concholepas). Dr. Castilla assessed loco communities in a non-disturbed rocky intertidal shore in a long term experiment set in the protected marine area at ECIM (5ha of human exclusion). Increased abundances of the gastropod were observed, and these trends have persisted until present day in the reserve. The results pointed towards the need of cooperation within fisheries management projects and ecologists.

The paper can be found at: link

Fence restricting the human access to the ECIM reserve

                                                          El loco, Concholepas concholepas

Crab tide, not a ‘red tide’

Suddenly the ocean turned red outside our window. Having phytoplankton backgrounds we immediately thought it might be a 'red tide'. However, it turned out to be millions of small crabs swimming around, something that was appreciated by hordes of birds coming for a free lunch. 

Las Cruces station

The station is situated on the coast ~100 km west of Santiago, and consists of an old and new part. The new part is recently built and has very comfortable lecture rooms, labs and offices. Most of the activity at the station is directed at inter-tidal ecology and littoral-pelagic coupling. There seem to be relatively little work done with plankton, and we hope to fill some gaps of knowledge on this topic :-)

Sampling water in the Horrific Pacific and setup of the experiment

The water sampling was conducted between the 12^th and the 13^th March 2014. The first sampling trip lasted 6 hours, with half of the crew being seasick for the whole trip, proving the evident differences between sampling in little seas such as Baltic and Mediterranean and sampling in vast oceans with “real” waves J

Besides the harsh experience the landscape provided spectacular overlook to local marine wildlife, such as Magellanic penguins (Spheniscus magellanicus), southern American sea lions (Otaria flavescens), sea otters (Lutra felina), Chilean dolphins (Cephalorhynchus eutropia) and pelicans (Pelecanus thagus), among other interesting fauna. 

Water from three different areas was sampled, representing different conditions, and we expected different phytoplankton communities. The three sampling stations were: an upwelling point (33.18611S-71.71933W), a non-upwelling point (33.35088S-71.68208W) and a close to river outlet point (33.61597S-71.64649W). The water was collected with niskin bottles from 5 meter depth.  Temperature, salinity and conductivity (CTD) profiles were also measured.

The experiment was set up outdoors at ECIM in a water bath to ensure stable temperature. A light sensor and two thermometers monitor these environmental parameters every 30 seconds. The inside of the bath was coated with black plastic fabrics in order to reduce the light reflexion. We have set up 18 mesocosms using 15L cubitainers, placed inside water tank each with individual aeration system to ensure a stable pH and prevent sedimentation.

The reason why we do this study

Global climate change, ocean acidification, increasing oxygen minimum zones and overexploitation of marine resources lead to changes in coastal ecosystems around the world. In this study we focus on the phytoplankton community which is the basis of the marine food web. These changes have potential implications for higher trophic levels and for biogeochemical cycles.

Increases in oxygen minimum zones lead to increasing denitrification removing nitrogen (N) and increased phosphorus (P) release from the sediment. In places where deep water rises up to the surface (in upwelling regions like in the Humbolt current) this will lead to lower N:P ratio of the upwelling water. In the present study, we will use two different N:P ratios (16 and 3) to investigate the affect this will have on different phytoplankton communities.