Ricardo Rozzi

Integrating Ecology and Environmental Ethics: Earth Stewardship in the Southern End of the Americas

The South American temperate and sub-Antarctic forests cover the longest latitudinal range in the Southern Hemisphere and include the worlds southernmost forests. However, until now, this unique biome has been absent from global ecosystem research and monitoring networks. Moreover, the latitudinal range of between 40 degrees (°) south (S) and 60° S constitutes a conspicuous gap in the International Long-Term Ecological Research (ILTER) and other international networks. We first identify 10 globally salient attributes of biological and cultural diversity in southwestern South America. We then present the nascent Chilean Long-Term Socio-Ecological Research (LTSER) network, which will incorporate a new biome into ILTER. Finally, we introduce the field environmental philosophy methodology, developed by the Chilean LTSER network to integrate ecological sciences and environmental ethics into graduate education and biocultural conservation. This approach broadens the prevailing economic spectrum of social dimensions considered by LTSER programs and helps foster bioculturally diverse forms of Earth stewardship.

Ten Principles for Biocultural Conservation at the Southern Tip of the Americas: The approach of the Omora Ethnobotanical Park

This article discusses ten principles for biocultural conservation at the southern tip of the Americas. The article focuses on a case study at the Omora Ethnobotanical Park in Chile.

Changing lenses to assess biodiversity: patterns of species richness in sub-Antarctic plants and implications for global conservation

Article discussing patterns of species richness in sub-Antarctic plants and implications for global conservation.

Exotic vertebrate fauna in the remote and pristine sub-Antarctic Cape Horn Archipelago, Chile

Pristine wilderness is a scarce global resource, but exotic species are so common that they constitute a principal component of worldwide ecological change. The relationship between these two topics, invasion and remoteness, was the impetus behind five years of fieldwork aimed at identifying the assemblage and range of exotic vertebrates in Cape Horn, Chile, identified as one of the worlds most pristine wilderness areas. While the archipelago has extremely low human population density and vast tracts of undisturbed land, we discovered that several terrestrial vertebrate groups were dominated by exotic species. Native birds were diverse (approx. 154 spp), and only 1.3% (or two spp.) were introduced. In contrast, exotic terrestrial mammals (12 spp.) and freshwater fish (three spp.) outnumbered their native counterparts, constituting 55% and 75% of the assemblages. Using GIS, we found that not all areas were impacted equally, largely due to intensity of human occupation. Human settled islands (Navarino and Tierra del Fuego) hosted the greatest number of exotics, but humans alone did not explain observed patterns. Remote islands also had introduced species. North American beavers (Castor canadensis), American minks (Mustela vison) and feral domestic dogs and cats were particularly widespread, and their range in isolated parts of the study area raised important ecological and management questions. In conclusion, the Cape Horn Archipelago retained areas free of exotic vertebrates, particularly parts of the Cape Horn and Alberto D’Agostini National Parks, but at many sites introduced species were overwhelming native biota and altering these previously remote natural ecosystems.

The Reciprocal Links between Evolutionary-Ecological Sciences and Environmental Ethics

This article discusses the reciprocal links between evolutionary-ecological sciences and environmental ethics.

First evidence of bryophyte diaspores in the plumage of transequatorial migrant birds.

Correlations between transequatorial migratory bird routes and bipolar biogeographic disjunctions in bryophytes suggest that disjunctions between northern and southern high latitude regions may result from bird-mediated dispersal; supporting evidence is, however, exclusively circumstantial. Birds disperse plant units (diaspores) internally via ingestion (endozoochory) or externally by the attachment of diaspores to the body (ectozoochory). Endozoochory is known to be the primary means of bird-mediated dispersal for seeds and invertebrates at local, regional, and continental scales. Data supporting the role of bird-mediated endozoochory or ectozoochory in the long distance dispersal of bryophytes remain sparse, however, despite the large number of bryophytes displaying bipolar disjunctions. To determine if transequatorial migrant shorebirds may play a role in the ectozoochory of bryophyte diaspores, we developed a method for screening feathers of wild birds. We provide the first evidence of microscopic bryophyte diaspores, as well as those from non-bryophyte lineages, embedded in the plumage of long distance transequatorial migrant birds captured in their arctic breeding grounds. The number of diaspores recovered suggests that entire migratory populations may be departing their northern breeding grounds laden with potentially viable plant parts and that they could thereby play significant roles in bipolar range expansions of lineages previously ignored in the migrant bird dispersal literature.

Invasive American mink Mustela vison in wetlands of the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve, southern Chile: what are they eating?

This article discusses invasive American mink Mustela vison and its ecological effect in wetlands of the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve, southern Chile.

Conservation strategies for biodiversity and indigenous people in Chilean forest ecosystems

The distribution of Chilean temperate forests has been greatly disrupted by human activities, mainly through logging, land clearing for agriculture, and replacement of native forests by extensive commercial plantations of exotic trees More than Vi million people of indigenous ancestry (mainly Pehuenche and Huilliche) still live in close association with forests in south‐central Chile Indigenous people have been forced to retreat, along with the last remains of native forests, towards marginal lands, characterised by low productivity and limited accessibility This process has been driven by a historical trend that reassigned public and indigenous land to private or industrial landowners, and by a Chilean forestry policy that has ignored biodiversity and non‐timber forest products, and undervalued native forests by providing costly subsidies to industrial plantations for timber and pulp production As a result of these policies, two major conflicts have emerged indigenous people encroached by timber plantations are resisting the expansion of commercial forestry, and the conservation of the last remains of biologically valuable habitat is at odds with land use claims by indigenous groups in less accessible areas A promising solution to these problems is the development of mixed use landscapes or “extractive reserves”, where non‐degrading economic uses of forests, such as ecotourism and harvesting of non‐timber products, coexist with the provision of ecosystem services and protection of biodiversity within indigenous land Regulation of land use in extractive reserves requires strengthening traditional knowledge of natural resource use and government incentives to manage and conserve native forests

Old-Growth Temperate Rainforests of South America: Conservation, Plant-Animal Interactions, and Baseline Biogeochemical Processes

A structural and compositional definition of old-growth forest is presented, which places emphasis on the lack of recurrent human impact, the presence of a shade-tolerant canopy with emergent pioneers, and a patch area that minimises edge effects. Using this definition, we provide an overview of the current conservation status, relevance of plant–animal interactions, and unique features of nutrient fluxes in old-growth forests of southern South America. Chile hosts the largest area and latitudinal extent of old-growth temperate forest remaining in the southern hemisphere, reaching 56° S in the Cape Horn Archipelago. Despite recent public and private efforts to protect remaining old-growth forests and their endemic biodiversity, they continue to decline steeply as a result of new routes of access to commercial stands, lack of protection of coastal areas, anthropogenic fire, and expansion of monoculture-based forestry toward higher latitudes and altitudes. Pollinators (insects and birds) and vertebrate frugivores (birds and an arboreal marsupial) are important mutualists of many Chilean rain forest trees, vines and epiphytes. There is evidence to suggest that some native pollinators and animal seed vectors may be highly susceptible to changes in forest structure due to loss of old-growth forest cover. Forest fragmentation and loss of keystone, animal-pollinated emergent trees due to logging and fires, have radically changed pollinator assemblages in rural landscapes, leading to reproductive dependence on European honey bees and other exotic species. Regarding other ecosystem functions, nutrient cycles in unpolluted old-growth forests of southern Chile are characterised by strong inorganic nitrogen (N) retention and large organic N leakage to forest streams. Non-symbiotic N fixation in litter and soil tends to increase in older stands. Knowledge of these “unpolluted nutrient cycles”, particularly N and P, is still meager despite its relevance to understanding the consequences of increased global disruption of element cycles by humans. Development of baseline measurements and experiments in southern Chilean old-growth temperate forests can enhance our understanding of unpolluted ecosystem functioning.

Biocultural Ethics: From Biocultural Homogenization Toward Biocultural Conservation

The 14th Cary Conference and this book Linking Ecology and Ethics for a Changing World: Values, Philosophy, and Action reconnect the theoretical reason of ecological sciences with the practical reason of ethics to better understand and to more fairly assess the social processes of the changing world in which we co-inhabit today. In this chapter I invite ecologists, philosophers, and other actors to essay an additional integration: the examination of the diversity of ways of understanding the world and their interrelationships with the diversity of modes of judging which ways of co-inhabiting are just or unjust. With a biocultural perspective that highlights the planetary ecological and cultural heterogeneity, I introduce three interrelated terms: (1) biocultural homogenization, a major, but little perceived, global driver of losses of biological and cultural diversity that frequently entail social and environmental injustices; (2) biocultural ethics that considers –ontologically and axiologically– the interrelations between the habits and the habitats that shape the identity and well-being of the co-inhabitants; (3) biocultural conservation that seeks social and ecological well-being through the conservation of biological and cultural diversity and their interrelationships.