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In February 2012, we started cooperative work in marine scientific research with the German Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), led by Dr. Jürgen Laudien, together with Huinay Foundation.
One of the main objectives of this research, is to study the colonization of benthic fauna in the medium and long term, installing underwater recruitment tiles in three different sectors, and then comparing the information with the Comau Fjord, around Huinay Foundation.
We have installed a total of thirty recruitment tiles around the Reserve, in groups of ten per sector: Isla Jaime, Punta Pillán and Islas Tres Hermanas, and we follow them monthly through photographic record, to demonstrate the order of colonization of individuals.
As part of a parallel investigation, individuals of the species of coral Desmophyllum dianthus, were marked with techniques that allow studying its growth rings per year by 2014.
At Isla Jaime, fifty shells of the ancient brachiopod Magellania venosa, were marked to analyze their growth to 2013. This analysis will help researchers find the reasons why these shells abound and have developed so well on this part of the Chilean coast, unlike the rest of the world where there are almost no examples. In turn, thirty samples of this specie were collected (preserved in 100% ethanol), which were taken to Germany to study their genetic structure.
Also, collected and taken to Germany were twenty samples of shrimp species Munida gregaria for taxonomic identification and comparison with other samples of Chilean Patagonia and the Falklands. This species is an important part of the marine benthic community in Patagonia, occupying a key position in food webs of coastal fish, birds and marine mammals. The aim of this study is to obtain information on the genetic structure and population.
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