Por primera en vez Chile una mujer triunfó en las elecciones presidenciales. Sugerimos que la victoria de Michelle Bachelet se explicó, en primer lugar, por sus atributos personales. Los chilenos la evaluaron como la candidata más confiable y con mayor cercanía, valorando además sus condiciones como posible gobernante. En segundo lugar, se vio favorecida por un ambiente político y económico derivado de la reconocida gestión del ex presidente Ricardo Lagos. Un tema crucial que atraviesa todo el escrito corresponde a la solidaridad de género. Se sostiene que el apoyo de las mujeres fue determinante para el triunfo de Bachelet, cuestión que se corrobora tanto a nivel de encuestas en términos de intención de voto como de resultados electorales finales por comuna.

In 2015, a center-left government introduced an electoral reform that replaced the binomial electoral system governing parliamentary elections since 1989 with a more proportional system. This article provides an account of the reform process, describes the new electoral law, and discusses the factors explaining the reform. We argue, first, that it was possible, due to the incentives the government provided, to secure the support of an ample majority of parliamentarians; also, a new and favorable political scenario had emerged, in which the support of the main right-wing parties was not necessary for the reform to pass. Second, we maintain that the reform sought mainly to resolve problems affecting the parties of the governing coalition related to negotiations of coalition lists for elections. As a complementary objective, the reform promoted a general interest by establishing rules that allowed a “fairer” system of representation and improved competitive conditions.

In 1925 a new electoral system was introduced in Chile. This reform changed the electoral formula from a cumulative voting system to a proportional one (d'Hondt) and established new rules about district magnitude and form of voting. It has been argued that this reform was motivated by the emergence of new parties or the expansion of the electorate. This article offers an alternative explanation: in the case of Chile, the main reason for the electoral reform was the parties' need to solve problems of strategic coordination stemming from the characteristics of the Chilean cumulative voting system. In this context, the Chilean case shows that there are many routes to proportionality.

The Concertación lost the recent presidential elections in Chile after 20 years in office. This article proposes three explanations for this result. First, the Concertación's candidate selection process through primaries was exclusionary, without opening up participation to all potential applicants. This combined with a deep erosion of the coalition, reflected in the resignation of deputies and senators from parties that compose it. The process was accelerated with the emergence of an independent candidate, formerly from the Concertación. Second, the candidate from the right increased his vote in the poorest sectors and expanded the right's constituency to middle-class segments, traditional Concertación electoral strongholds. Third, the right achieved greater electoral consistency than the Concertación by reducing the number of voters who split their tickets. Its presidential candidate obtained almost the same percentage as its list of deputies.

Information deficit constrains our capacity to assess the status of threatened species in regional and global contexts. In this study of the endangered Worthen’s Sparrow Spizella wortheni, we first review its current and potential distribution using the species distribution software, Maxent. An initial basic model was constructed using historical records, and used to guide a subsequent search for additional populations in summer 2013. Using the information gathered from our survey, we built a second, breeding model, to update the current and potential species distribution. Population size was estimated using line transects of variable length to count singing males and calculate densities per 10 ha. We found 10 new small reproductive populations dispersed south of the established core area, increasing the extent of occurrence of the species from 25 km2 to almost 17,000 km2. Suitable habitat across the species’ range was more than threefold higher in the breeding compared with the basic model. We counted 316 males, with a mean density of four individuals per 10 ha. Our results demonstrate that conservation assessment based on limited records can exaggerate the vulnerability of species, and confirm that the Worthen’s Sparrow population and geographic distribution range are larger than previously determined, indicating that the Red List status of this species should be reconsidered. The use of niche models was successful in enhancing species information data quantity (e.g. range extensions) and quality (e.g. more precise habitat requirements), facilitating improved understanding of needs and conservation status in the wild.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of the CSN1S1 locus polymorphism on 305-d records of milk, fat, protein, lactose and total solids yields, fat, protein, lactose and total solids contents in Mexican dairy goats. A total of 514 lactation records belonging to Alpine (n=60), Saanen (n=105) and Toggenburg (n=74) goats, born from 2003 to 2006 in three herds were used. Discrimination between alleles E, F, N, A* (CSN1S1 A, G, H, I, O1 and O2) and B* (CSN1S1 B1, B2, B3, B4, C and L) were made by amplification of fragments of the gene CSN1S1 and digestion with the restriction endonuclease XmnI. In order to estimate additive and dominance effects, data sets including (1) all genotypes, and (2) only homozygote genotypes, were analysed using linear mixed models. The allele A*, had significant additive effects for protein content (0·21±0·07%; P=0·002) and total solids content (0·66±0·23%; P=0·005) when compared with allele F. An unfavourable additive effect of allele A* on milk yield was found in the Alpine breed (−81·4±40·2; P=0·046) when compared with allele F. Favourable dominance effects were found for some genotypes (P<0·05) for milk yield (A*N and B*N), fat yield (A*N and B*E), protein yield (A*N and B*E), lactose yield (A*N) and total solids yield (A*N). Also, unfavourable dominance effects were found (P<0·05) for protein content (A*B* and A*N) and total solids content (A*B*, A*N, and A*F). Allele A* was the only one with a positive effect for protein content. Significant allele-year interaction effects were also observed. The presence of significant dominance effects, estimated between specific pairs of alleles, challenged the purely additive nature of the genetic effect at the CSN1S1 locus. Implications from use of CSN1S1 effects in goat breeding programmes are presented.

Chlorophyll-a (chl-a) distribution and associated physical (temperature, salinity) and chemical (dissolved oxygen) conditions off northern Chile (Humboldt Current System), during the austral summer (February–March) and autumn (May) of 1994, were studied in the region bounded by ∼18–24°S and 70–72°W (out to ∼200 km from the coast; 0–100 m depth); within this region, nutrients were measured in an area of persistent coastal upwelling (∼19–22°S, out to 80 km from the coast). Temperature and salinity distributions, as well as nutrient concentrations, indicated the occurrence of active upwelling during both cruises. Also, and together with maps of geopotential anomaly (0/200 dbar) and depth of the thermocline (15°C isotherm), their distribution suggested the presence of a mainly equatorward flow, anticyclonic eddy-like structures, and intrusions of warm (>19°C), high salinity (>35·0 psu), subtropical water towards the coast. A tongue of cooler and lower salinity water, and of lower flow fields, extended from the coast towards the offshore zone during both sampling periods, in association with higher chl-a concentrations (>1 mg m−3, >20 mg m−2 between 0 and 25 m depth) and predominance of net-phytoplankton (>20 μm). The comparison of these results with those for the winter and spring of 1993 in the same area suggest a relatively weak seasonal signal in chl-a concentration during the 1993–1994 period, with higher water column concentrations during the summer and spring periods in the selected upwelling area, though surface chl-a concentrations for the whole of the area did not vary significantly.