Under the outreach phase of the Project Fondecyt 1140692 “Modelling evolutionary processes that explain the origin and patterns of vertebrates biodiversity in South America: the importance of extrinsic and intrinsic drivers of species diversity”, last October 16 (2014), Erwin M. Barria made an interactive conference entitled “La biodiversidad sobre el paisaje: una charla de mantel largo”. This activity was part of the Outreach Program of Explora-Conicyt 1000 Científicos 1000 Aulas, being imparted for 4th and 5th grade children belonging to the Luis Amigó School from the city of Concepcion.
In general terms, the aim of this experience was to describe and illustrate how species are distributed in space according to the geological history of the landscape. First we explained audio-visually that there are historical geologic events that have created hills, valleys, hydrographic basins, islands, mountain ranges, etc. And the species that inhabit this territory must adapt their distributions to the dynamics of these events. To illustrate these interactions, all participants created their own landscape transforming the surface of a bedspread on a table and observing the changes in the spatial distribution of the different elements that inhabit the landscape (grains of various cereals, legumes and noodle), which act as whole communities of organisms whose dynamics varies depending on landscape modification.