Browsing by Author "Vargas Vásquez, Constanza Giovanna"

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    Assessing the Crucial Role of Marine Fog in Early Soil Development and Biocrust Dynamics in the Atacama Desert
    (2026) Fernández-Murillo, María del Pilar; Cifuentes, Erasmo; Beggs, Antonia; Manzano, Marlene; Gutiérrez-Cortés, Ignacio; Vargas Vásquez, Constanza Giovanna; Del Rio, López Camilo; Alfaro, Fernando D.
    Marine fog is a key non-rainfall water source that sustains microbial activity and transports dissolved nutrients inland, influencing early soil development in hyperarid ecosystems. However, the mechanisms through which sustained fog inputs drive soil surface modification and biocrust formation remain poorly understood. This study evaluated the effects of long-term fog augmentation on soil surface development, biocrust dynamics, and associated microbial communities in the Atacama Desert. We implemented a four-year fog addition field experiment with three sampling times (T0, T24, T48) to assess changes in soil physicochemical properties, biocrust composition, and the integrated multi-diversity of archaea, bacteria, fungi and protist. Sustained fog input transformed bare soils into biological soil crusts, particularly lichen- and moss-dominated stages. This transition was accompanied by increases in soil nitrogen, variations in organic matter accumulation, a shift from alkaline to near-neutral pH, and improvements in soil stability and water retention. Multi-diversity increased over time and was positively associated with ecosystem variables linked to water availability, structural stabilization, and decomposition. These functions, integrated into an ecosystem multifunctionality index, also increased under prolonged fog input, revealing a positive relationship between multifunctionality and multi-diversity. Overall, the results demonstrate that sustained fog input strongly enhances early soil surface development and biocrust establishment, highlighting the ecological importance of marine fog in shaping biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in hyperarid landscapes.
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    Atmospheric water collection across diverse climates along the Chilean coast: unraveling synoptic to local drivers of fog harvesting
    (EGU General Assembly, 2025) Río López, Camilo del; Lobos Roco, Felipe Andres; Espinoza Escobedo, Vicente Patricio; Keim Vera, Klaus Kurt; Valdivia Matteoda, Nicolas Felipe; Vargas Vásquez, Constanza Giovanna; Rivera, Diego
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    Atmospheric water collection across diverse climates along the Chilean coast: unraveling synoptic to local drivers of fog harvesting
    (EGU General Assembly, 2025) Río López, Camilo del; Lobos Roco, Felipe Andres; Espinoza Escobedo, Vicente Patricio; Keim Vera, Klaus Kurt; Valdivia Matteoda, Nicolas Felipe; Vargas Vásquez, Constanza Giovanna; Rivera, Diego
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    Soil bacterial community structure of fog-dependent Tillandsia landbeckii dunes in the Atacama Desert
    (Springer, 2021) Alfaro, Fernando D.; Manzano, Marlene; Almiray, Cristian; García B., Juan Luis; Osses, Pablo; Río López, Camilo del; Vargas Vásquez, Constanza Giovanna; Latorre H., Claudio; Koch, Marcus A.; Siegmund, Alexander; Abades, Sebastian
    The interplay between plants and soil drives the structure and function of soil microbial communities. In water-limited environments where vascular plants are often absent and only specialized groups of rootless plants grow, this interaction could be mainly asymmetric, with plants supporting nutrients and resources via litter deposition. In this study, we use observational approaches to evaluate the impact of local distribution of Tillandsia landbeckii across elevation on soil bacterial community structure and composition in the Atacama Fog Desert. Tillandsia landbeckii is a plant without functional roots that develops on meter-scale sand dunes and depends mainly on marine fog that transports resources (water and nutrients) from the Pacific Ocean. Our data show that soil bacterial abundance, richness, and diversity were significantly higher beneath T. landbeckii plants relative to bare soils. However, these differences were not significant across T. landbeckii located at different elevations and with different input of marine fog. On the other hand, bacterial community composition was significantly different with T. landbeckii plants across elevations. Further, samples beneath T. landbeckii and bare soils showed significant differences in bacterial community composition. Around 99% of all operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were recorded exclusively beneath T. landbeckii, and only 1% of OTUs were observed in bare soils. These findings suggest that the presence of T. landbeckii promotes significant increases in bacterial abundance and diversity compared with bare soils, although we fail to demonstrate that local-scale changes in elevation can affect patterns of soil bacterial diversity and abundance beneath T. landbeckii.