Nahuel Aizen
In the past couple of decades, both the frequency and magnitude of forest fires have greatly increased in my home region of Patagonia, resulting in the loss of massive extensions of native forests. If these ecosystems are to be preserved, it is necessary not only to aim for the prevention and suppression of fires but also to implement actions to restore forests and their functions. Unfortunately, there is a lack of practical knowledge on forest restoration in Patagonia. The number of ecological restoration studies carried out in the Southern Hemisphere is very limited, and most standardized forest restoration practices were originally designed to work with exotic species and ecosystems. On the other hand, the success of many efforts focused on restoring some of the forests lost by fire in Patagonia has not been evaluated due to a lack of follow-up studies.
In order to counteract this, my project aims to develop effective post-fire restoration protocols for the endangered Patagonian tree species Araucaria araucana. To this end, I am currently monitoring previous restoration efforts by traditional and aerial dispersal, identifying risk factors associated with restoration that could lead to establishment failure, conducting field experiments to evaluate the effectiveness of widely used seeding strategies for preventing seed predation and facilitating germination and establishment (like the use of seed coatings and micro-site selection), testing and developing potential new restoration strategies, and planning to conduct a pilot forest restoration by precision planting using unmanned vehicles with a custom-made seeder. In the end, I will be evaluating the practical and economic feasibility of precision planting in the context of other restoration methods and technologies by conducting a comprehensive analysis of the economic, labor, and time costs for each method.