Freshwater macroinvertebrates from Yendegaia National Park, Chile: Tackling knowledge biodiversity gaps in the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve

The Yendegaia National Park, located to the south of Tierra del Fuego and at the eastern margin of the Darwin Mountain Range, forms part of the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve (CHBR) and lies in the Magellanic sub-Antarctic ecoregion. This national park in the extreme south of Chile comprises an extensive valley surrounded by mountain ranges that give rise to glacial and rain or snow-melt streams. The present study provides the first inventory of freshwater macroinvertebrates within the park, further comparing the species composition of three rivers with contrasting riparian vegetation. One river has a riparian vegetation dominated by Coihüe de Magallanes (Nothofagus betuloides), an evergreen species. The river with riparian vegetation dominated by lenga presented a significantly higher diversity of macroinvertebrates than in the rivers with riparian vegetation dominated by ñirre and coihüe. The community composition of macroinvertebrates presents some affinities with that reported for other areas within the reserve with similar vegetational composition, such as Navarino Island or the Alberto de Agostini National Park. The influence of riparian vegetation and other environmental variables must be studied through other approaches. In this way, the need for studies that complement the inventory presented here emerges, contributing to a characterization that allows the evaluation of ecological patterns of aquatic macroinvertebrates. In this way, it will be possible to identify generalities and singularities of the freshwater biological communities and their environmental relationships in the southern tip of Chile.

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