Researchers from the Patagonian Institute for the Study of Continental Ecosystems (IPEEC, Conicet) analyze the benefits that beetles bring to ecosystems and human activities in Patagonia. Among other things, this insect collaborates in the fertilization of arid soils, in the choice of conservation areas and in the evaluation of the effects of desertification. Although it was believed that the diversity of this animal was low in the area, in the city of Puerto Madryn and its surroundings alone there are more than 60 varieties of beetles.
“These animals are very sensitive to environmental changes and, as each group can respond differently, the great diversity of species allows us to have a large number of tools to predict and understand these changes“, ensures german cheeseIPEEC researcher.
For example, the presence or absence of populations of certain beetles and other insects and arachnids (which may be called arthropods) serves as an indicator to assess desertification due to overgrazing by livestock. This phenomenon produces changes related to vegetation fragmentation and soil compaction that affect the arthropod fauna. Under this premise, researchers can predict ecosystem environmental changes mediated by grazing intensity and provide management recommendations to sheep producers to obtain better profitability from their fields.
hardworking and helpful
In general, insects and arachnids are associated with what is unpleasant, what is harmful and transmits diseases. However, they also have positive functions. In the arid regions of Patagonia, nature has given very small animals a very large responsibility. For example, arthropods are responsible for returning lost energy to the ecosystem.
In this sense, the beetles obtain their food from decomposing organic matter, and after feeding, the fecal matter is degraded with a high content of nitrogen and phosphorus. “Both nutrients re-enter the ecosystem and are reused in the germination of new plants.. This allows the recirculation of a good part of the energy that would be lost”, explains the researcher.
Nyctelia circummundata is a species of beetle commonly called “catanguita” and has the greatest adaptation to aridity that exists among insects. During its evolutionary process, it lost the ability to fly, but it generated an air chamber between the first pair of modified wings and the body wall that increases its ability to avoid water loss through transpiration. “It is nature that proposes mechanisms of regulation and transformation in the lives of these animals.although sometimes they are altered by human activities”, he points out.
This adaptation, added to other strategies, allows it to inhabit hostile environments (with low humidity and temperatures above 35 degrees) and to be active in extreme conditions where very few organisms can survive. “That’s why they continue to perform their ecosystem services even in the height of summer, provide essential nutrients to the soil from the ingestion of dead plants, when even soil microorganisms are deactivated due to excess temperature and lack of moistureDetails Cheli.
a conservationist species
Then, this species constitutes a key component for the conservation of coastal dunes since, without this beetle, the soils of the dunes would be depleted of essential nutrients for the plants, which in turn are important for fixing the dune sand.
Beetles also help in the fight against pests, they have a wide diet that includes the consumption of several species of live plants. One of her favorites is the yellow flower, arugula or arugula: It is an exotic plant species native to Europe that invades the coastal dunes of northeastern Patagonia, causing a decrease in the cover of some native plants. such as the unquillo, a species used to make brooms.
“The two species, the exotic and the native, compete for space and the local is the one that loses out. But like these beetles they eat the exotic plant, it acts as a safeguard to prevent the unquillo from becoming locally extinct in the regionsays Cheli.
