Plants in the Atacama Desert have begun blooming in the middle of winter for the first time in a decade, blanketing parts of the driest desert on Earth in a sea of white and purple hues.
The researchers found that climate change is likely one of the causes of these unexpected events.
It’s unusual for Atacama Desert plants to flower in the middle of winter, and some say this unusual blooming is due to rains that fall in northern Chile during the austral autumn.
Unusual winter rains spark unusual blooms in Atacama Desert
About 0.4 inches (11 mm) of rain fell in mid-April. Locally The “camanchaca”, known as morning mist, stimulates plants that have been dormant for up to 15 years. The plants that define this landscape are the “pata de guanaco”, with its vibrant fuchsia flowers, and the white “sigh of the field”.
The main area where the bloom occurred was 115 to 155 square miles in size, as confirmed by Cesar Pizarro, head of the Biodiversity Conservation and Scientific Research departments at the Atacama National Forestry Corporation (Conaf).
Usually, complete Bloom Winter rains (which occur mainly in September and October) spread the desert to an area of up to 5,800 square miles, and some 200 species of flowers bloom.
In most cases, the flowers spring It also occurs in June, July and August, mainly due to the El Niño weather phenomenon, which causes more rainfall than normal in Chile.
La Niña weather could halt Atacama’s rare winter flowers, affecting pollination
A few years ago in March 2015, it rained and many BloomBut it’s not clear that will be the case this time: experts say the condition is likely to continue for another month before transitioning into La Niña.
Either way, if La Niña returns, these fields will likely be the last of the decade.The Atacama Desert’s rare winter blooms are also in trouble.
The main problem, says María Fernanda Pérez, an associate professor of ecology at Chile’s Pontifical Catholic University, is that pollinators don’t arrive as quickly as plants can respond to the rain. “If the seeds germinate and flower but the pollinators don’t arrive, the seeds die,” she said. Live Science.
She added that this is probably what is happening now, and it is due to the absence of bees, moths, beetles and other pollinating insects. She pointed to other instances where she noted that these rare events could cause flowering and pollinating insects to separate, resulting in seeds not being available.
climate The changes could result in unusual phenomena such as flowering becoming more frequent, which could also mean that annual plants hardly reproduce at all.
Atacama The desert is known to be one of the driest places on earth and is home to the rare and spectacular “blooming desert”, which occurs mainly during heavy winter rains.
Most of the time, when they bloom, they transform the barren landscape into a colorful canvas that attracts tourists and botanists from all over the world.
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