The Valdivian temperate rainforest is a biogeographic region considered as one of the 35 most important biodiversity hot spots on the planet due to the high number of species that houses its ecosystem.
It has the peculiarity of being one of the places with the highest number of endemisms. In other words, flora and fauna that only exist as native forms of life in this Ecoregion.
As for plants, 90% of their genera and 34% of their species are endemic.
If we talk about the animal kingdom, it is the same with 76% of amphibians, 50% of river and lake fish, 45% of all vertebrates, 36% of reptiles, 33% of mammals and 30% of the birds.
Another singular aspect is that more than 60% of the trees produce fleshy fruits, most of which can be consumed by man. Which is tremendous luck for those of us who live in this wonderful garden of Eden.
This is because, for whatever reason, these woody plants decided millions of years ago that their seeds be dispersed by animals to reproduce and colonize new places. Many of them by birds that can fly quickly over long distances.
This is the case of the olivillo, whose seeds can only germinate if they have previously been consumed by certain birds, one of them as we know so far, the Patagonian thrush (Turdus falcklandii).
Or the Quintral de maqui (Tristerix corymbosus), a plant that grows on the branches of the maqui tree (Aristotelia chilensis) and that offers its exquisite fruits to the litle monkey of the forest so that the seeds can be defecated on the branches of the future tree that will be its host. A glue called viscina is extracted from its berries, the same sticky substance that after passing through the digestive system of this nice marsupial, the little monkey, makes the seeds stick to the branches.
To be continued …
