January 19, 2022: To get off with a good start for the New Year, several members of the Myxotropic project have been taking samples, for the last two weeks, in one of the most spectacular landscapes of Chile, the Andean salt flats, also known as “Salares”.

Specifically, Dr. Leonardo D. Fernández (CIRENYS/Bernardo O'Higgins University, UBO, Chile), Dr. Ítalo Treviño (IMOD, Peru), and Fernando Useros, a PhD student based at the RJB-CSIC, currently doing an internship at UBO, have been sampling myxomycetes and tecate amoebae in several Salares located in the north of Chile.

Our mates have collected hundreds of water and soil samples, and analyzed the environmental conditions that characterize such special habitats. They have also sampled and photographed  myxomycete collections fructified in the field. This material, which will be processed in the coming months at RJB-CSIC, is a unique resource, incredibly important in our attempt to discover amoeboid protists developing in these extreme environments.
It has been so fruitful that we cannot wait to arrange the next sampling trip.