The need for long-term ecological research in frontier ecosystems at the southern end of the Americas

Wilderness-development frontiers are confronting rapid and intensive habitat transformation, which along with climate change, constitute major threats on the continuity of species and ecosystems. To assess the effects of these changes on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, long-term ecological research (LTER) and monitoring sites are needed in a diversity of ecosystems. In Chile, some private and public protected areas offer opportunities to monitor biodiversity and ecosystem functions in natural and semi-natural habitats. Pilot long-term studies have been maintained for about a decade at Senda Darwin Biological Station, Chiloé Island and the Omora Ethnobotanical Park, Puerto Williams, in the wet-temperate region, and for 17 years in Fray Jorge National Park in semiarid Chile. Such studies are largely the result of individual efforts rather than National research programs.  We propose that the momentum associated with the creation of the Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity (IEB) that hosts scientists from five leading Chilean universities, with a broad range of expertise, can provide the decisive impulse for the final consolidation of the Chilean LTER-Network, starting with these three pilot sites. Such a Network should provide critical data to model and predict the response of species and ecosystems to current and future environmental change, including climate, species introductions, and pollution. This information is vital for the sustainability of Chile’s economy, which is strongly dependent on the export of biological resources (timber, salmon, wine, fruit).  Chilean LTER sites, because of their low air pollution and isolation, can also serve as baseline or control sites to compare trends from more industrialized and populated regions of the world.