Browsing by Author "Lara, Carlos"

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    CDOM dynamics in two coastal zones influenced by contrasting land uses in northern Patagonia
    (2024) Curra-Sanchez, Elizabeth D.; Valerio, Aline de M.; Lara, Carlos; Garcia-Tunon, Wirmer; Broitman, Bernardo R.; Saldias, Gonzalo S.; Nimptsch, Jorge; Vargas, Cristian A.
    Colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM) is an indicator and optical proxy of terrestrial processes such as land use with allochthonous material fluxes, biogeochemical cycles, and water quality in coastal zones influenced by rivers. However, the role of land use changes on the spatial and temporal availability of CDOM has been poorly explored in Chile. Here, we studied two watersheds with similar climates and contrasting land use patterns in northern Patagonia considering the sampling of CDOM in their estuarine and adjacent coastal ocean. An empirical algorithm with the coefficients adjusted to our study areas to estimate CDOM was applied to Landsat 7 and 8 images to examine temporal variability of CDOMest from 2001 to 2011 and 2013-2020. Our results showed an increasing trend of CDOMest in both areas. Different trends in land use patterns between the two watersheds showed a significant correlation with CDOMest and contrasting associations with environmental variables. Higher humification was found in Yaldad in comparison with Colu. In both areas, allochthonous materials predominated, especially during austral spring according to the low values of the Fluorescence Index (FI). Our results highlight the potential of CDOMest to parameterize biogeochemical cycling models and to further understand the dynamics of CDOM in coastal ecosystems.
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    Chlorophyll-a MODIS mesoscale variability in the Inner Sea of Chiloe, Patagonia, Chile (41-43 degrees S): Patches and Gradients?
    (UNIV VALPARAISO, 2010) Lara, Carlos; Miranda, Marcelo; Montecino, Vivian; Luis Iriarte, Jose
    Satellite images are powerful tools to describe meso-and large-scale spatial structures, thus helping in the comprehension of the physical-biological processes taking place in the ocean. The objective of this study was to establish spatial (horizontal) and temporal (seasonal) variability of the autotrophic biomass measured as satellite chlorophyll concentrations (Chl-a) in the Inner Sea of Chiloe (41.0-43.5 degrees S). Remote sensing (MODIS) and geostatistics (Variograms) approaches were used to characterize Chl-a spatial-horizontal structure at the surface layer by anisotropic estimation of the Chl-a average values. A total of 27 selected images were analyzed and grouped into summer, spring, fall and winter seasons during the January 2003-December 2005 period. Image temporal analysis showed a classic pattern for the autotrophic biomass dynamics of cold temperate coastal areas, with highest Chl-a values occurring during the spring-summer period, and the lowest values during the fall-winter season. Image spatial analysis indicated that Chl-a is distributed into more homogeneous and larger than 50 km patches, during the fall-winter seasons, whereas during the spring-summer seasons more heterogeneous and smaller than 30 km patches were found. The anisotropy analysis showed a predominant angle in the East-West direction, suggesting the role of water column stratification as a modulating process of surface Chl-a spatial variability in the Inner Sea of Chiloe area.
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    Contrasting land-uses in two small river basins impact the colored dissolved organic matter concentration and carbonate system along a river-coastal ocean continuum
    (2022) Curra-Sanchez, Elizabeth D.; Lara, Carlos; Cornejo-D'Ottone, Marcela; Nimptsch, Jorge; Aguayo, Mauricio; Broitman, Bernardo R.; Saldias, Gonzalo S.; Vargas, Cristian A.
    Human activities have led to an increase in land use change, with effects on the structure and functioning of ecosystems. The impact of contrasting land uses along river basins on the concentration of colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM) reaching the coastal zone, and its relationship with the carbonate system of the adjacent coastal ocean, is poorly known. To understand the relationship between land use change, CDOM and its influence on the carbonate system, two watersheds with contrasting land uses in southern Chile were studied. The samples were collected at eight stations between river and adjacent coastal areas, during three sampling campaigns in the austral summer and spring. Chemical and biological samples were analyzed in the laboratory according to standard protocols. Landsat 8 satellite images of the study area were used for identification and supervised classification using remote sensing tools. The Yaldad River basin showed 82% of native forest and the Colu River basin around 38% of grassland (agriculture). Low total alkalinity (A(T)) and Dissolved Inorganic Carbon (DIC), but high CDOM proportions were typically observed in freshwater. A higher CDOM and humic-like compounds concentration was observed along the river-coastal ocean continuum in the Yaldad basin, characterized by a predominance of native forests. In contrast, nutrient concentrations, A(T) and DIC, were higher in the Colu area. Low CaCO3 saturation state (Omega(Ar) < 2) and even undersaturation conditions were observed at the coastal ocean at Yaldad. A strong negative correlation between A(T), DIC and Omega(Ar) with CDOM/fDOM, suggested the influence of terrestrial material on the seawater carbon chemistry. Our results provide robust evidence that land uses in river basins can influence CDOM/fDOM proportion and its influence on the carbonate chemistry of the adjacent coastal, with potential implications for the shellfish farming activity in this region. (C) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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    Coupled Biospheric Synchrony of the Coastal Temperate Ecosystem in Northern Patagonia: A Remote Sensing Analysis
    (2019) Lara, Carlos; Cazelles, Bernard; Saldias, Gonzalo S.; Flores, Raul P.; Paredes, Alvaro L.; Broitman, Bernardo R.
    Over the last century, climate change has impacted the physiology, distribution, and phenology of marine and terrestrial primary producers worldwide. The study of these fluctuations has been hindered due to the complex response of plants to environmental forcing over large spatial and temporal scales. To bridge this gap, we investigated the synchrony in seasonal phenological activity between marine and terrestrial primary producers to environmental and climatic variability across northern Patagonia. We disentangled the effects on the biological activity of local processes using advanced time-frequency analysis and partial wavelet coherence on 15 years (2003-2017) of data from MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) onboard the Terra and Aqua satellites and global climatic variability using large-scale climate indices. Our results show that periodic variations in both coastal ocean and land productivity are associated with sea surface temperature forcing over seasonal scales and with climatic forcing over multi-annual (2-4 years) modes. These complex relationships indicate that large-scale climatic processes primarily modulate the synchronous phenological seasonal activity across northern Patagonia, which makes these unique ecosystems highly exposed to future climatic change.
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    Environmental variability and larval supply to wild and cultured shellfish populations
    (2022) Broitman, Bernardo R.; Lara, Carlos; Flores, Raul P.; Saldias, Gonzalo S.; Pinones, Andrea; Pinochet, Andre; Mejia, Alexander Galan; Navarrete, Sergio A.
    Coastal upwelling ecosystems support some of the most productive fisheries of the planet together with a large shellfish aquaculture sector that depends on oceanographic processes to deliver planktonic larvae to replenish and feed the farmed stock. Coastal shellfish aquaculture operations in Chile and Peru have experienced large interannual fluctuations in larval supply over the past decade, yet the drivers of such variability remain unidentified. We focused on the effects of environmental variability on larval supply of the farmed Peruvian bay scallop Argopecten purpuratus in a bay in northern Chile (Tongoy Bay, 30 circle S) that accounts for over 90% of countrywide landings. We examined the hypothesis that the environmental processes governing larval supply were shared with wild benthic invertebrates with planktonic larval development and compared time series of larval abundance for the scallop with larval supply rates to benthic populations of two well-studied wild intertidal species: the Chthamalid barnacle Jehlius cirratus and the purple mussel Perumytilus purpuratus. To this end, we examined the cross-correlation of larval supply to environmental variability using MODIS satellite fields of sea surface temperature (SST) chlorophyll-a concentration (chl-a) and fluorescence line height (nFLH), together with three climate indices relevant for the south east Pacific sector: the Southern Oscillation index (SOI), the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the Antarctic Oscillation Index (AAO). Our results showed that over the five-year study period (2009-2013), patterns of larval supply to the scallop population were related to interannual variability in the environmental processes as captured by their Empirical Orthogonal Functions (EOFs), likely to adult condition before spawning. Surprisingly, larval supply for none of the wild species showed a clear association to the EOFs. In contrast, scallops and wild species showed significant association to lower frequency climate variability as captured by the SOI and the PDO, but not the AAO. Results suggest that larval supply patterns to Tongoy Bay may be modulated by regional patterns of climatic variability, particularly of tropical origin. Thus, changes in coastal oceanography associated with ongoing changes in global climate could have strong and lasting effects on the supply of seedstock for wild and cultivated species across this eastern boundary coastal system and argue for the establishment of long-term ocean observing and early warning systems along the region.
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    Spatio-temporal variability of turbidity derived from Sentinel-2 in Reloncavi sound, Northern Patagonia, Chile
    (2024) Garcia-Tunon, Wirmer; Curra-Sanchez, Elizabeth D.; Lara, Carlos; Gonzalez-Rodriguez, Lisdelys; Urrego, Esther Patricia; Delegido, Jesus; Broitman, Bernardo R.
    Turbidity is associated with the loss of water transparency due to the presence of particles, sediments, suspended solids, and organic or inorganic compounds in the water, of natural or anthropogenic origin. Our study aimed to evaluate the spatio-temporal variability of turbidity from Sentinel-2 (S2) images in the Reloncavi sound and fjord, in Northern Patagonia, Chile, a coastal ecosystem that is intensively used by finfish and shellfish aquaculture. To this end, we downloaded 123 S2 images and assembled a five-year time series (2016-2020) covering five study sites (R1 to R5) located along the axis of the fjord and seaward into the sound. We used Acolite to perform the atmospheric correction and estimate turbidity with two algorithms proposed by Nechad et al. (2009, 2016 Nv09 and Nv16, respectively). When compared to match-up, and in situ measurements, both algorithms had the same performance (R-2 = 0.40). The Nv09 algorithm, however, yielded smaller errors than Nv16 (RMSE = 0.66 FNU and RMSE = 0.84 FNU, respectively). Results from true-color imagery and two Nechad algorithms singled an image from the austral autumn of 2019 as the one with the highest turbidity. Similarly, three images from the 2020 austral autumn (May 20, 25, 30) also exhibited high turbidity values. The turbid plumes with the greatest extent occurred in the autumn of 2019 and 2020, coinciding with the most severe storms and runoff events of the year, and the highest turbidity values. Temporal trends in turbidity were not significant at any of the study sites. However, turbidity trends at sites R1 and R2 suggested an increasing trend, while the other sites showed the opposite trend. Site R1 recorded the highest turbidity values, and the lowest values were recorded at R5 in the center of the sound. The month of May was characterized by the highest turbidity values. The application of algorithms from high-resolution satellite images proved to be effective for the estimation and mapping of this water quality parameter in the study area. The use of S2 imagery unraveled a predictable spatial and temporal structure of turbidity patterns in this optically complex aquatic environment. Our results suggest that the availability of in situ data and the continued evaluation of the performance of the Nechad algorithms can yield significant insights into the dynamics and impacts of turbid waters in this important coastal ecosystem.