Some organisms not only play an essential roleas models for scientific development, but alsohelp to bridge the gap between science andwhat society expects from it when some aspectof such organisms has an immediate applicationto satisfy evident human needs. The brineshrimp Artemia is a paradigmatic model in thisregard. The striking biological characteristicsof this organism have been successfully appliedto the development of marine fish andcrustacean farming (Lavens & Sorgeloos 2000).Artemia exhibits a unique ability to live andreproduce in waters of high salinity (0.4-3.4 M)and variable ionic conditions. Not surprisingly,members of the genus are referred as theextremophiles of the biological world, e.g., theencysted gastrula embryo (cyst) is the mostresistant of all animal life history stages, whilethe motile stages (nauplii and adults) areamong the best osmoregulators in the animalkingdom (Clegg & Trotman 2002). These andother amazing life history traits, including aneasy handling under laboratory conditions (DeLos Rios 2001), makes Artemia a modelorganism of choice for many basic disciplines,particularly for studies on adaptation andspeciation (Gajardo et al. 2002).As any exploited organism, Artemia oftenconfronts the interests of users and thoseseeking to protect the environment and localgenetic resources (Gajardo & Beardmore2001). Chile is potentially not an exception,and the objective of this letter is to draw theattention on the importance to protect localArtemia resources and their habitat.Hypersaline environments are ancient andvery unique ecological settings, distributed,though not exclusively, in tropical andsubtropical areas. The salty lakes and lagoonsscattered over the Salar de Atacama areconsidered quite unique since they exhibit acombination of biotic and abiotic conditionsthat have caused complex speciation patterns inArtemia (Gajardo et al. 1998, 2002).Accordingly, some local Artemia populationsare genetically unique in relation to regional orglobal biodiversity. Two out of seven bisexualArtemia species are found in Chile, namely A.franciscana (Kellog 1906) and A. persimilis(Piccinelli & Prosdocini 1968). The former, thedominant species in the Americas, isdistributed in north and central Chile, between18-30o S (Gajardo et al. 1998). Geneticanalyses at different levels (e.g., DNA, protein-coding loci and karyological traits) (Gajardo B cystdiameter and naupliar size).Both the autochthonous Artemia and theirhabitat can be threatened by ongoing miningactivities in “salares” of the Atacama desert,which are rich mineral deposits. But foreseenrisks are likely to come as marine fish farming,which typically uses Artemia nauplii as live foodfor fish larval stages, continuous to growworldwide, including Chile. A significantproportion of Artemia cysts traded in worldmarkets used to be harvested from Great SaltLake (GSL) in Utah, USA. However, harvestunpredictability and cyst shortage (less than 2,500tons are from GSL) has urged producers toexplore new sites around the world. LocalArtemia resources in Chile might be of highpriority, provided they meet international qualitystandards and turn out more cost-effective inrelation to what the world market offers.Harvesting pressure on sites in Chile couldselectively deplete certain genotypes, whilsttranslocation or introduction of new and exoticspecies or populations (e.g., parthenogenetictypes) that can out compete local ones, could