The DFG Priority Program 1803 "EarthShape - Earth Surface Shaping by Biota” (www.earthshape.net, short description of the project below) installed a meteorological station network consisting of four stations between ~26 °S to ~38 °S in the Coastal Cordillera of Chile, South America. The stations are intended to provide baseline meteorological data along the climate and ecological gradient investigated in the EarthShape program. The stations are located in the EarthShape study areas, encompassing desert, semi-desert, mediterranean, and temperate climate zones. Each station is configured to include sensors that record precipitation at ground level, radiation at 2.8 m height, wind at 3 m height, 25 cm depth soil temperature, soil water content and bulk electrical conductivity, 2 m air temperature and relative humidity, and barometric pressure at 30-minute intervals. The data recording started in March/April 2016. The EarthShape project runs until December 2021. Data collection will continue until that date, and potentially longer depending on available funds.
This publication provides two sets of data: raw data and processed data. The raw data contains 2 file types per meteorological station: (1) all measured parameters of the whole dataset measured in 30 minutes intervals as downloaded from the station. Furthermore, we provide (2) one table per station of high-resolution precipitation events, measured in 5 min. intervals that were triggered during rain events at each station. The processed data consists of a continuous timeseries of observations since the activation of each station. The processing consists of the exclusion of erroneous data, caused by maintenance of the weather-stations and sporadic malfunction of sensors detected during data screening. The excluded data is communicated in a logfile (excel table), comments from data screening, solar eclipse and others are summarized in history files (ASCII ). the full description of the data and methods is provided in the data description file (Data description file).
We compiled available information for burrowing animals in Chile in two tables: "2020-042_Uebernickel-et-al_Vertebrates" and "2020-042_Uebernickel-et-al_Invertebrates". A discussion about burrowing vertebrates and invertebrates and the effect of the communities at selected sites in arid to humid Chile is given in Übernickel et al. (in review): Quantification of animal burrowing volumes on hillslopes along a climate gradient, Chile.
The purpose of these tables is to provide an overview of burrowing vertebrates and invertebrate species in Chile. The degree of known details of their natural history varies and is often minimal. For invertebrates, the majority of the published work is taxonomic or descriptive that hardly encounter biologic or ecologic aspects of the respective species. The geographic distribution of most invertebrate species remains largely unknown, as they have been topic of single investigations at specific research sites in Chile. The tables are intended as starting point for follow up research. Quantification of distributional ranges, density, excavation rates, burrow or gallery dimensions and further parameters of these species, is important to quantify the biotic influence they have on a landscape level.
From publications mostly treating single species, we have compiled this comprehensive dataset of 45 digging or soil-moving vertebrate and 345 invertebrate species. It includes a list of species names with morphological digging adaptations and species observed to dig. In vertebrates excavating behavior is documented for mammals, lizards and birds. In invertebrates, excavating behavior is mentioned for Chilean spiders, scorpions, camel spider, beetles, cicadas, wasps, bees, ants, a termite and antlions. Chile is characterized by an endemic fauna, especially true for arthropods, with limited distributional ranges. Currently, these largely still unknown species are under thread of extinction by the destruction of habitats, desertification and climate change. We encourage specialists to add information to this first compilation.