Vegetation growth and landscape genetics of <i>Tillandsia</i> lomas at their dry limits in the Atacama Desert show fine‐scale response to environmental parameters

Koch, Marcus A.; Stock, Clara; Kleinpeter, Dorothea; Río, Camilo del; Osses, Pablo; Merklinger, Félix F.; Quandt, Dietmar; Siegmund, Alexander

doi:10.1002/ece3.6924

Cited by 12 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 68 publications

(142 reference statements)

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“…The long-term history of the evolution of this highly specialized species and its actual distribution pattern may hint that, while being adapted to a minimum average fog occurrence during the entire growing season, these species do not tolerate long-term stochasticity and large variation of such fog events. The data reported in Table 1 support this assumption by showing that the area between 15 and 25 km inland (clusters 2 and 3), which is the Chilean coastal region harboring T. landbeckii loma vegetation (e.g., Koch et al 2020), also presents the lower variation of FLCs occurrence.…”

Section: Insights Into Tillandsia Landbeckii Past and Present Distributionmentioning

confidence: 55%

“…Finally, we completed our analyses with high-resolution spatial mapping of Tillandsia ecosystems at Cerro Oyarbide. The discussion of the relationship between fog ecosystems and FLCs interannual variations is based on previous studies (Latorre et al 2011;Koch et al 2019Koch et al , 2020.…”

Section: Methods and Datasetsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The researchers obtained contradictory results regarding ENSO influences, as increased fog (together with its potential water-input) during La Niña years could be balanced by rains or drizzle conditions characterizing El Niño years. Furthermore, different authors have related FLCs spatial changes to climatic variations, observing how such changes are leading many diverse and fragile ecosystems to a state of vulnerability, mainly due to variations of the previously granted water input (Muñoz-Schick et al 2001;Pinto et al 2006;Schulz et al 2011b;Koch et al 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Spatial distribution and interannual variability of coastal fog and low clouds cover in the hyperarid Atacama Desert and implications for past and present Tillandsia landbeckii ecosystems

et al. 2021

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The hyperarid Atacama Desert coast receives scarce moisture inputs mainly from the Pacific Ocean in the form of marine advective fog. The collected moisture supports highly specialized ecosystems, where the bromeliad Tillandsia landbeckii is the dominant species. The fog and low clouds (FLCs) on which these ecosystems depend are affected in their interannual variability and spatial distribution by global phenomena, such as ENSO. Yet, there is a lack of understanding of how ENSO influences recent FLCs spatial changes and their interconnections and how these variations can affect existing Tillandsia stands. In this study, we analyze FLCs occurrence, its trends and the influence of ENSO on the interannual variations of FLCs presence by processing GOES satellite images (1995–2017). Our results show that ENSO exerts a significant influence over FLCs interannual variability in the Atacama at ~ 20°S. Linear regression analyses reveal a relation between ENSO3.4 anomalies and FLCs with opposite seasonal effects depending on the ENSO phase. During summer (winter), the ENSO warm phase is associated with an increase (decrease) of the FLCs occurrence, whereas the opposite occurs during ENSO cool phases. In addition, the ONI Index explains up to ~ 50 and ~ 60% variance of the interannual FLCs presence in the T. landbeckii site during summer and winter, respectively. Finally, weak negative (positive) trends of FLCs presence are observed above (below) 1000 m a. s. l. These results have direct implications for understanding the present and past distribution of Tillandsia ecosystems under the extreme conditions characterizing our study area.

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Section: Insights Into Tillandsia Landbeckii Past and Present Distributionmentioning

confidence: 55%

Section: Methods and Datasetsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Spatial distribution and interannual variability of coastal fog and low clouds cover in the hyperarid Atacama Desert and implications for past and present Tillandsia landbeckii ecosystems

et al. 2021

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“…Tillandsia marconae only occurs close to Arica and T. virescens is found in small patches only with close proximity to T. landbeckii lomas. Most fog oases observed by Pinto et al (2006) were monospecific stands of T. landbeckii (Koch et al 2019(Koch et al , 2020, which is the main object of this study. Tillandsia landbeckii belongs to the subgenus Diaphoranthema, which may include a total of 29 species (Donadío et al 2015; but see also Barfuss et al 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Setting the evolutionary timeline: Tillandsia landbeckii in the Chilean Atacama Desert

et al. 2021

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The Chilean Atacama Desert is among the oldest deserts of the world. Here, Tillandsia landbeckii is forming a unique vegetation type known as Tillandsia lomas. This vegetation consists in its typical configuration of one single vascular plant species only and forms regular linear structures in a sloped landscape and is largely depending on fog occurrence as dominant source of water supply. Without developing a typical root system, there are only few other terrestrial Tillandsia species growing on bare sand in Chile and Peru such as T. marconae, T. virescens, T. purpureaor T. latifolia. Although phylogenetic evidence is limited, convergent evolution of this unique growth behavior is evident. The predominantly arid and hyper-arid climate exists since the Early Miocene, which raises the question about timing of T. landbeckii evolutionary history. Phylogenomic analyses using whole plastome sequence data highlight the onset of diversification in T. landbeckii approximately 500,000 years ago. We also demonstrate subsequent secondary genetic contact with T. purpurea during the Late Pleistocene using DNA sequence data and genome size estimates, which resulted into the formation of T. marconae.

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“…Previous investigations of Tillandsia plants in northern Chile have studied the geographic distribution, genetic diversity, and the variation of stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes in their tissues reflecting the variability of water and nutrient supply (Pinto et al 2006;González et al 2011;Latorre et al 2011;Jaeschke et al 2019;Koch et al 2020;Merklinger et al 2020). However, there are currently no reports on the specific composition of leaf waxes (fatty acids and n-alkanes) in these plants.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Leaf wax composition and distribution of Tillandsia landbeckii reflects moisture gradient across the hyperarid Atacama Desert

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et al. 2022

Plant Syst Evol

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In the hyperarid Atacama Desert, water availability plays a crucial role in allowing plant survival. Along with scant rainfall, marine advective fog frequently occurs along the coastal escarpment fueling isolated mono-specific patches of Tillandsia vegetation. In this study, we investigate the lipid biomarker composition of the bromeliad Tillandsia landbeckii (CAM plant) to assess structural adaptations at the molecular level as a response to extremely arid conditions. We analyzed long-chain n-alkanes and fatty acids in living specimens (n = 59) collected from the main Tillandsia dune ecosystems across a 350 km coastal transect. We found that the leaf wax composition was dominated by n-alkanes with concentrations (total average 160.8 ± 91.4 µg/g) up to three times higher than fatty acids (66.7 ± 40.7 µg/g), likely as an adaptation to the hyperarid environment. Significant differences were found in leaf wax distribution (Average Chain Length [ACL] and Carbon Preference Index [CPI]) in the northern zone relative to the central and southern zones. We found strong negative correlations between fatty acid CPI and n-alkane ACL with precipitation and surface evaporation pointing at fine-scale adaptations to low moisture availability along the coastal transect. Moreover, our data indicate that the predominance of n-alkanes is reflecting the function of the wax in preventing water loss from the leaves. The hyperarid conditions and good preservation potential of both n-alkanes and fatty acids make them ideal tracers to study late Holocene climate change in the Atacama Desert.

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Vegetation growth and landscape genetics of Tillandsia lomas at their dry limits in the Atacama Desert show fine‐scale response to environmental parameters

Abstract: This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Cited by 12 publications

References 68 publications

Spatial distribution and interannual variability of coastal fog and low clouds cover in the hyperarid Atacama Desert and implications for past and present Tillandsia landbeckii ecosystems

Spatial distribution and interannual variability of coastal fog and low clouds cover in the hyperarid Atacama Desert and implications for past and present Tillandsia landbeckii ecosystems

Setting the evolutionary timeline: Tillandsia landbeckii in the Chilean Atacama Desert

Leaf wax composition and distribution of Tillandsia landbeckii reflects moisture gradient across the hyperarid Atacama Desert

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