Parque Nacional Bosque Fray Jorge Research Station (IV Región)

This research station is located in Quebrada Las Vacas (30°38’S, 71°40’W) within the Fray Jorge Forest National Park, IV Region (Chile), 85 km to the south of La Serena. The landscape corresponds to thorn scrub semiarid community, which is characteristic of the coastal zone of the north-central Chile, with a seasonal herbaceous stratum.

Since 1989, long-term ecological research has been carried out in this site, completing 17 years of continuous record of vegetation, small mammals, and vertebrate predators (foxes and raptors). A 48 m2 wooden house exists in the study site. The house can comfortably lodge six people, and there is a expeditious access for vehicles. The  green wooden house has three bedrooms, a kitchen, bathroom, and dining room; basic furniture (beds, tables, chairs), hot water facilities, and electricity (solar panels). There is a store room to protect materials, vehicles, and field equipment, and a small hold. The station is occupied for 15 days each month. For the moment, it is occupied only by researchers and students from the Universidad de La Serena (Dr. Gutiérrez and his team), and visiting North American researchers.

Person in charge: Dr. Julio Gutiérrez (jgutierr@userena.cl)

Farellones Long Term Ecological Research Site

At this study site, IEB scientists have conducted research since 1978. This site contains an automatic climate station.

The research is carried out between 2,800 and 3,600 m altitude, including the village of Farellones and the sky centers of La Parva and Valle Nevado, to the east of Santiago and very near the Yerba Loca Natural Sanctuary.

Studies conducted at the site include ecology of vegetation, regeneration and ecophysiology for various species at different altitudes. Currently this site is being used by scientists and postdoctoral investigators from the University of Chile and the University of Concepción.

Contact: Dr. Lohengrin Cavieres (lcaviere@udec.cl)

Senda Darwin Biological Station (X Region)

This station is managed by the Senda Darwin Foundation (FSD), located next to the Route 5 Sur, ten kilometers from the city of Ancud on the big island of Chiloé (X Region, southern Chile). The station has a total of 113 ha, and its objective is to facilitate scientific research, environmental education, and application of knowledge to Chilean temperate forest conservation. It is one of the first Private Protected Wild Areas certified by CONAF in Chile.

The biological station is in the heart of northern area of the island, within a North-Patagonian Forest landscape, fragmented by agriculture and pasturelands. Since 1998, the station and its facilities are available for Chilean and foreign researchers (with previous contact with FSD), who develop their ecological research about birds, mammals, insects, biological corridors, restoration, bogs, and nitrogen cycling. At the present time, 12 researchers are developing their work in this station.

Senda Darwin has a guest house, laboratory, education center, native trees nursery, and two paths open to the public, which allow visitors to connect with scientific knowledge generated by FSD researchers. The Charles Darwin Interpretative Trail (200 m., 40 minutes) has stations where one can admire and reflect about the landscape and its changes. The Pichihuillilemu Inquiry Trail ("small forest of the south" in the Mapudungun language) has stations where it is possible to make simple and amusing studies (300 m., journey of 50 minutes).

Contact:
Santiago: Juan Ignacio Díaz, info@sendadarwin.cl, (56 2) 3542937.
Chiloé: Miguel Sanhueza, park guard and administrative coordinator of the Station, estacionbiologicasd@gmail.com

Research Station: Omora Ethnobotanical Park (XII Region)

The Omora Ethnobotanical Park is located 3 km from Puerto Williams, the world’s southernmost town (Comuna Cabo de Hornos, Provincia Antártica Chilena). The activities carried out in the Omora Park, which was inaugurated in 2001, are coordinated by Omora NGO, the Universidad de Magallanes and the Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity (IEB). In 2005 the Cabo de Hornos Archipelago was declared a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO and includes two national parks inside the area: Cabo de Hornos and Alberto D’Agostini.

The Park includes a representative mosaic of the region’s principal habitats, including forests of the evergreen coigüe (Nothofagus betuloides) and deciduous lenga (N. pumilio) and ñirre (N. antarctica), Sphagnum bogs, beaver ponds and meadows and high-Andean areas. There is a circuit of paths that allows to access study sites, and the southernmost section of the Chile Trail passes through the park. The Omora Park constitutes a natural laboratory that allows to study the ecology of the most southern forests in the planet, including processes and effects of the global climatic change.

The Universidad de Magallanes has a guest house in Puerto Williams that can lodge six people; it is also possible to rent vehicles and hostels in the town. The research station has some field equipment, such as Shermann and Tomahawk traps, bird ringing implements, nest boxes, benthonic sampling nets.   

Contact: Sandra Vallejo - Coordinator Sede UMAG-Puerto Williams. Phone: (56 61) 621305.  

More information: www.omora.org - www.umag.cl/williams - fundacion@omora.org