Millennium Nucleus LiLi holds its first meeting of 2023

For the LiLi Millennium Nucleus, it is essential to obtain scientific evidence in order to contribute to the protection of Patagonia’s biodiversity.

By Sense Contents.-The LiLi Millennium Nucleus has carried out its first activity of 2023, gathering its team to share the progress of its first year and plan its actions during this new stage.

The Universidad Austral de Chile, in the Emilio Pugin building, brought together the members of the LiLi Millennium Nucleus for two days in its first cloister of 2023. This activity took place on March 10 and 11, with the objective of analyzing and dialogue regarding the different investigative lines of the Nucleus, where the first investigations of 2022 were reviewed.

From the Biobío region to Tierra del Fuego, scientists from the Universidad Austral, Pontificia Universidad Católica, Universidad de Santiago and Universidad de Talca seek to provide scientific information on mountain ecosystems, with the aim of advancing knowledge and protecting the biodiversity of Patagonia and its native forests.

“The LiLi Millennium Nucleus is a multidisciplinary team focused on ecological, genetic and conservation science research focused on Patagonia. As part of the research, LiLi primarily seeks to understand the relationship of focal organisms, such as native yeasts (Saccharomyces eubayanus) and the marsupial Monito del Monte, which are supported in this high altitude ecosystem by the forest Nothofagus, particularly in the tongue. LiLi seeks to determine how these organisms respond to the seasonal flow of energy, and how global warming will affect them.” Comments Dr. Roberto Nespolo, director of the Nucleus.

“We set out to put the forest at the center of our research, with all the associated organisms to understand what factors, in these organisms that are so different from each other, impact behavior at a physiological level, population structure, genetic diversity and distribution at a global level. national”, affirms Dr. Francisco Cubillos, PI of the Nucleus.

Complementing the above, Dr. Nespolo comments that: “in extreme environments like these, in winter ecosystems face conditions that are incompatible with life. For now, we have focused on three characteristic organisms of this ecosystem: yeasts S. eubayanuscold-adapted, single-celled fungi, the marsupial Dromiciops (monito del monte), unique in this area of ​​the world and those who fix the radiant energy, the lenga forest (N. pumilio). It is essential to understand the functioning of these figurative elements of the trophic chain, which depresses and hibernates in winter, when nothing can live, but reactivates and flourishes in spring, developing a frenetic activity in summer”.

Relevance of multidisciplinary teams

Starting the second year of LiLi, 20 scientists met during this activity, where the main researchers, undergraduate, doctoral and post-doctoral students were grouped, as well as a tremendous team of collaborators including research assistants, biologists, biotechnologists and veterinarians. This team has shown a tremendous interest in doing science again from the experience of the land, complementing with all the precision of the laboratories.

This research addresses the animal, plant and fungi kingdom, achieving a complementary union between each of the studies, addressing various investigative methods and transforming it into something completely enriching and motivating.

Dr. Frida Piper, PI and alternate director of LiLi comments that: “climate change will affect ecosystems jointly and not individually the organisms that make up the ecosystem. We scientists are reluctant to work in a multidisciplinary way, it is complex, but it is where we should aim, the effects do not occur in a single organism, but on an ecosystem scale. We know that there are interactions between organisms, so studying a single organism limits us and makes us lose information.”

“From the beginning, people linked to science are used to working in a laboratory, on the other hand, with LiLi we go back to the field, we go back to the forest and we look around us. As scientists we ask ourselves what are the phenomena that are happening here. I approach it from microorganisms, to understand how they survive, how they got to that point and how they dispersed.

Based on collaboration and interdisciplinary work at LiLi we have managed to go further”. Dr Francisco Cubillos.

“2023 for LiLi is a year of reaping what we have grown. It is our second year where we will see research results, but it is also time to define what we will focus on next, how LiLi will grow and who will accompany us in this process of searching for scientific evidence, around the ecosystems of Patagonia, at the limit of life and in a scenario of climate change”.