The link below is an exercise (in Spanish) developed by Mr. Horacio Samaniego (www.ecoinformatica.cl) at Universidad Austral in Chile. The exercise is part of a "Ecologia del paisaje" Landscape ecology course for 4th year students.

Analisis de vacios de conservacion para especies de reptiles en la region de Antofagasta. pdf (987KB)

Authors: Nicolás Rocca Burkhardt and Álvaro González Reyes

The introduction for the exercise is translated into English (using an online translation tool) below:
 

Analysis of gaps in conservation for species of reptiles in the region of Antofagasta

1. INTRODUCTION

Urban sprawl and the disproportionate use of resources by humans, has led to endanger many species of our flora and fauna. One way to guard this area is through conservation, which in our country is determined by the National Protected Areas (SNASPE).

Reserves, Parks and Monuments are presented as categories of management capable of protection by the State, natural environments, land or to achieve water conservation (CONAF, 2008). Despite this clear objective, it is extremely difficult to adequately protect all the species in its natural range, irrespective of their taxa.

Biogeographic Information is presented as a vital element in the management of our cash resources (Jennings, 2000). GAP analysis is developed with the mission to provide security assessments on elements biotic, ie communities of plants and native animal species (Prior-Magee et al., 2007) This process results in the creation, on a basis of GIS and digital data, of an identification of individual species and richness that are or are not represented in existing management areas (Prior-Magee et al.2007).

In this paper, we analyzed the area corresponding to the region II Antofagasta in Chile, focusing on conservation goals and analyze gaps conservation sauroptidos classified as rare, based on Environment Annual Report by the National Institute of Statistics INE 2005.