canceled

Two sides of the same desert

Extreme arid conditions of the deserts in southern Peru and northern Chile have created a unique vegetation almost entirely restricted to the desert margins along the coast of the Pacific Ocean and the Andean precordillera. The so called coastal “loma vegetation” (loma—Spanish: “hill”) and Andean precordillera vegetation run more or less parallel along the Peruvian and Chilean coast over thousands of kilometers, separated by a strip of full desert ranging from a few kilometers to over 100 km in width. While the loma vegetation has been studied extensively in the past decades, the precordillera remains generally more poorly explored. Within the scope of my doctoral thesis, I investigate on the floristic connectivity of the loma- and precordillera floras of Peru and Chile and the parameters determining the extent of vegetation cover in this region. For that purpose, I use methods of multivariate statistics as well as spatial models. Around the desert core in southern Peru and northern Chile predictions based on habitat suitability models are strikingly complementary with the results of floristic analysis demonstrating that floristic patterns within the study region are only partly linked to diverging environmental conditions but are also the result of ecogeographic barriers imposed by full the desert. Apart from that, habitat suitability models find extensive potentially suitable habitats for both loma- and precordillera vegetation so far undetected by methods of remote sensing. During a field campaign in spring 2022 we were able to collect floristic and vegetation data along 10 additional transects in the precordillera in middle and south Peru, filling in essential documentation gaps. Based on this complementary data we aim at refining our understanding of floristic patterns for the entire study region, putting additional emphasis on climate change and how it will affect the coastal and precordillera habitats.