Rodrigo S. Rios

Terminando excelente reunión trinacional de ecología en Mendoza, fueron 5 días espléndidos de intercambio de conocimientos ecológicos de cono sur de Sudamérica. @iebchile.bsky.social @rae2025.bsky.social

Deciphering the root anatomy of Encelia canescens (Asteraceae), a summer deciduos shrub representative of the Atacama Coastal Desert, Chile. Vascular system structure is non-convencional, with reduced cortex. 🤩

A cacti-smuggling case with a prickly end: the novel way courts are making poachers pay Two Italian cacti smugglers have been fined for illegally trading plants from Chile – and for the cost of restoring the environment. Conservationists hope more cases will follow

www.theguardian.com/environment/... @iebchile.bsky.social @biodata.bsky.social

Just a small sample of the cross sections used to study chances in anatomical traits in response to water scarcity in petioles of Vitis vinifera varieties from Chile. A collaboration led by PhD student Emilio Villalobos-Soublett from Universidad de Chile.

"Alligators ameliorate dry-season stress by engineering deep-water habitats and altering food-web dynamics. This study proposes that the stress gradient hypothesis may be a special case of the intermediate disturbance hypothesis..."🐊
https://buff.ly/3Q2ODXt
@pjfloodecology

Palynological characterization of a diverse desertic ecosystem: the Peruvian Lomas The Pacific coastal Peruvian landscapes are dominated by desert and dry-forest biomes, which have undergone shifts in extent and floral composition in response to Plio–Pleistocene climatic fluctuat...

Ohh, this is a cool study in #Southamerican #deserts! Characterizing the #polen of the central #Peruvian desertic #flora! Description of 194 genera!!! Another example that these #ecosystems are more #diverse than what is usually considered

#palinology #oases #lomas

doi.org/10.1080/0191...

Honored to have been awarded a FONDECYT Regular 2025 grant (ANID-Chile), boosting research in the Atacama Desert.

Grant: "The fast-slow continuum of woody shrub communities as a driver of the fast-slow rates of ecosystem functioning across an aridity gradiente within they Atacama Desert"

Relación entre hongos y arbustos bajo tierra: una simbiosis que permite la vida en el desierto Un estudio del IEB revela cómo los hongos micorrízicos permiten la supervivencia de arbustos en el desierto de Atacama, demostrando la resiliencia y adaptabilidad de estos ecosistemas extremos.

First paper of the year is out showing the critical importance of arbuscular mycorrizal colonization in modulating plant resource use strategies in the Atacama Coastal Desert
www.frontiersin.org/journals/pla...

www.elmostrador.cl/cultura/cien...

Here, broken down into a thread, is a copy of my last post on X.
1. This is my farewell post. I am not deleting this account, as I don’t want to lose the archive, and I don’t want my name taken by imposters. But, for as long as Musk owns the platform, I’ll no longer use it.