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This project was funded from September 2006 for three years by the British Government's Darwin Initiative programme. The focus of our project is the study of aquatic insects from Nahuel Huapi National Park (NHNP) in Patagonia, Argentina. The park includes a wide range of wetlands, including montane streams, lowland lakes and marshes, distributed within temperate rainforest and arid steppe. The material will be identified and stored in a fully referenced and accessible collection at La Plata Museum and the Natural History Museum, London. Darwin Initiative funding has been used to equip a biodiversity laboratory at National Park Headquarters in Bariloche and also a field station at Puerto Blest. Information on the insect species in NHNP will be entered into a GIS database, together with a vegetation classification and wetland characteristics, to model freshwater insect data spatially and create a biodiversity database, the first of its kind in Patagonia. We hope that the experiences we gain during the project, the insect collections and databases, the publications, and the many other products, will be used to further enhance wetland conservation throughout Argentina and southern South America.

This paper presents the first inventory of modern and sub-fossil taxa of the Family Chironomidae (Insecta: Diptera) from Nahuel Huapi National Park in Patagonia, Argentina. The catalogued fauna contains 104 species in 48 genera and 6 sub-families for modern fauna and 52 morphotypes in 36 genera and 4 subfamilies for sub-fossil fauna. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trace metals (Sb, As, Br, Cs, Co, Cr, Ag and Hg), rare earth elements (Ce, Eu, La, Lu, Sm, Tb and Yb), and Sc. were analysed in suspended load and in two sediment cores from Lake Nahuel Huapi, Nahuel Huapi National Park, Patagonia, Argentina, by using Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis. The core activity profiles of 210Pb and 137Cs were measured to estimate the age of the sediments. Silver was enriched in the upper layers of both cores, and correlated with the strong growth of the population of Bariloche City in the last 50 yr. Concentrations are higher in the core sampled near Bariloche, and indicate some transport in the water body. Silver concentrations measured in the suspended load were 4.58±0.36 and 3.46±0.40 μg g-1 in the southern margin of the lake, near San Carlos de Bariloche City, whereas in the northern margin the concentrations were 1.68±0.18 and 1.88±0.23 μg g-1. Concentration ratio for silver in suspended load and upper core layers were equal in both sampling points. These facts suggest that Ag contents correspond to inputs associated with human activities. Bromine concentrations show a strong increase above base line values, similar to silver. In contrast, caesium, chromium, and cobalt concentrations do not differ from base line values. The metalloids antimony and arsenic show little variation with regard to base line concentration. Noticeable, the mercury contents found in the suspended load. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]