company:galapagos

  • New species can develop in as little as two generations, Galapagos study finds — ScienceDaily
    https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/11/171124084320.htm

    Researchers previously assumed that the formation of a new species takes a very long time, but in the Big Bird lineage it happened in just two generations, according to observations made by the Grants in the field in combination with the genetic studies.

    [...]

    It is likely that new lineages like the Big Birds have originated many times during the #evolution of Darwin’s finches, according to the authors. The majority of these lineages have gone extinct but some may have led to the evolution of contemporary species. “We have no indication about the long-term survival of the Big Bird lineage, but it has the potential to become a success, and it provides a beautiful example of one way in which speciation occurs,” said Andersson. “Charles #Darwin would have been excited to read this paper.”

    #génétique #espèces

  • Darwin’s Finches Are At It Again - Facts So Romantic
    http://nautil.us/blog/darwins-finches-are-at-it-again

    Darwin’s finches are in trouble. Climate change and globalization have drastically affected their habitats on the Galapagos Islands. In the 1960s, we introduced, most likely through a banana import from Brazil, the fly parasite Philornis downsi. The fly’s larvae infest the finches’ nests, where they enter the nostril cavities of the chicks, first eating the tissue, and later sucking the blood. The result is a horizontal tunnel in the upper beak that you can see straight through.Photos by Jody O’Connor and Katharina J. Peter | Source The number of larvae infesting finch nests has increased by 46 percent from 2000 to 2013 (from about 29 larvae per nest to 51), and according to a recent study, they now kill over half of Darwin’s finches before they even leave the nest. In an attempt to save (...)

  • Snakes versus dragons : how we filmed this sequence for Planet Earth II | Science | The Guardian
    https://www.theguardian.com/science/animal-magic/2016/nov/24/snakes-versus-dragons-how-we-filmed-this-sequence-for-planet-earth-ii?C

    Comment a été tournée la vidéo qui a fait frémir les internautes il y a une dizaine (?) de jours.

    We filmed this sequence over a period of two years, in two trips to Galapagos of about 18 filming days each, adding up to around 400 hours of field time. The edited material from Galapagos lasts less than nine minutes. It contains the first ever footage of snakes hunting dragon-like marine iguanas en masse, one of the most thrilling examples of animal behaviour I have had the privilege to film.
    A baby marine iguana rests on the head of an adult
    A hatchling has run the racer gauntlet and made it to safety Photograph: Elizabeth White/BBC NHU/©Elizabeth White

    When baby marine iguanas hatch in Galapagos, they normally lie just beneath the surface of the sand to absorb as much heat as they can before they reveal themselves to the world. It is assumed that they do this to power their muscles to outrun any predators that might be lying in wait. This is especially important on Fernandina, the largest pristine tropical island in the world, where the absence of introduced species means there are large numbers of racer snakes.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3OjfK0t1XM

    • Ça a fait frémir les téléspectateurs aussi non ? Quelle blague « les internautes »… Superbe programme en tout cas !

  • All Queens Must Die
    http://www.theverge.com/2016/8/25/12608928/santa-cruz-island-argentine-ants-extermination-nature-conservancy
    Sur l’île de Santa Cruz, au large de la Californie, depuis les années 1980, on a tué des dizaines de milliers de vaches, moutons et cochons (avec snipers néo-zélandais spécialisés dans la traque d’animaux domestiques)...

    The snipers tracked the collared, so-called Judas pigs back to their kind and, only if and when they could destroy a group all at once, opened fire. Any pig left alive, even wounded, would become all the more skittish and difficult to find. It would teach others to fear helicopters overhead.

    ...en plus des colonies d’abeilles, ceci dans le but de faire revenir l’île à son état virginal.
    Maintenant, la dernière espèce invasive à éliminer, c’est la fourmi d’Argentine, et ça a l’air coton.

    Boser needed to poison all the queens at once. If she did that, Santa Cruz would be one step closer to perfection.

    Les questions sur ce massacre viennent à la fin.

    Still, the eradication effort seemed extreme, like a grand experiment in whole system ecology. By trying to turn the island back into what it once was, undoing the human hand with more human hands, where were we going?

    Apparemment le même genre de plan pour « préserver la #biodiversité » (celle-ci justifiant de telles extrémités aux yeux des scientifiques impliqués) a déjà été déployé aux Galapagos avec l’éradication (c’est le terme scientifique) de 80000 chèvres (sur l’île de Santiago seulement, parce que ça a atteint 100000 sur Isabela).
    http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/08/09/galapagos-week-when-conservation-means-killing

    The logistical details are fascinating. The first phase, from December 2001 to January 2004, was ground hunting. Researchers recruited locals, many of whom had never hunted before, and taught them how to use hunting dogs, rifles, radios, telemetry and GPS. Then they started the cold and systematic business of killing.

    Puis on retrouve les snipers néo-zélandais.

    [...] The ground-hunting phase of the project killed 53,782 goats. The second phase was three months of aerial attacks, by specialized hunters from New Zealand using semi-automatic rifles.

    Semblerait toutefois qu’il y ait d’autres techniques un peu moins barbares qui existent, genre déplacer ces pauvres bêtes ailleurs.

    “Eradications are simply the most cost-effective approach,” he said.

  • Can Life Ever Be Perfectly Adapted to Its Environment? - Facts So Romantic
    http://nautil.us/blog/can-life-ever-be-perfectly-adapted-to-its-environment

    Can an organism ever become perfectly evolved? In Richard Lenski’s lab at Michigan State University, scientists are trying to see if that’s possible. The idea grew out of the lab’s Long-Term Evolution Experiment, started in 1988, with Escherichia coli; in 2010, they celebrated 50,000 generations (500 occur every 75 days). The lab has 12 populations of the bacteria inhabiting their own climate-controlled flasks of swirling nutrient solution, each like a finch-less Galapagos—an experiment in evolution by natural selection, but one that has been stripped to its bare essentials. For the past 28 years, there has been essentially no change in the bacteria’s environment, and the only competition they face is with each other over scarce glucose. If there were ever a setting where a living organism (...)

  • The Seeds That Sowed a Revolution - Issue 21: Information
    http://nautil.us/issue/21/information/the-seeds-that-sowed-a-revolution-rp

    When the HMS Beagle dropped anchor on San Cristobal, the easternmost island in the Galapagos archipelago, in September 1835, the ship’s naturalist Charles Darwin eagerly went ashore to gather samples of the insects, birds, reptiles, and plants living there. At first, he didn’t think much of the arid landscape, which appeared to be “covered by stunted, sun-burnt brushwood…as leafless as our trees during winter” But this did not put him off. By the time the Beagle left these islands some five weeks later, he had amassed a spectacular collection of Galapagos plants. It is fortunate that he took such trouble. Most popular narratives of Darwin and the Galapagos concentrate on the far more celebrated finches or the giant tortoises. Yet when he finally published On the Origin of Species almost (...)

  • Biologists Work to Protect a Cathedral of Biology - Facts So Romantic
    http://nautil.us/blog/biologists-work-to-protect-a-cathedral-of-biology

    The isolated Galapagos Islands are a ecological treasure and a key setting in the history of science: Charles Darwin did research there that helped him come to understand biological evolution—though, as detailed in a new Nautilus story by Henry Nicholls, it was observations of plants, rather than the better-known finches, that were most enlightening. One hundred eighty years after Darwin’s visit to that unblemished wilderness, the Galapagos is facing an environmental threat: Birds on the islands have been infected by malaria. The disease drove many native birds to extinction in Hawaii, and biologists are investigating whether the same could happen in the Galapagos. In the radio piece embedded below, St. Louis public radio reporter Véronique LaCapra journeys to the exotic islands to talk (...)

  • The Seeds That Sowed a Revolution - Issue 10: Mergers & Acquisitions
    http://nautil.us/issue/10/mergers--acquisitions/the-seeds-that-sowed-a-revolution

    When the HMS Beagle dropped anchor on San Cristobal, the easternmost island in the Galapagos archipelago, in September 1835, the ship’s naturalist Charles Darwin eagerly went ashore to gather samples of the insects, birds, reptiles, and plants living there. At first, he didn’t think much of the arid landscape, which appeared to be “covered by stunted, sun-burnt brushwood…as leafless as our trees during winter” But this did not put him off. By the time the Beagle left these islands some five weeks later, he had amassed a spectacular collection of Galapagos plants. It is fortunate that he took such trouble. Most popular narratives of Darwin and the Galapagos concentrate on the far more celebrated finches or the giant tortoises. Yet when he finally published On the Origin of Species almost (...)

  • Ecuador drops 20 tons of poison on Galapagos Islands to wipe out rats and save unique native species that inspired Darwin « MasterAdrian’s Weblog
    http://masteradrian.com/2012/11/18/ecuador-drops-20-tons-of-poison-on-galapagos-islands-to-wipe-out-rats-

    Ecuador drops 20 tons of poison on Galapagos Islands to wipe out rats and save unique native species that inspired Darwin
    November 18, 2012
    Ecuador drops 20 tons of poison on Galapagos Islands to wipe out rats and save unique native species that inspired Darwin

    By Niamh O’doherty

    PUBLISHED: 10:43 EST, 15 November 2012 | UPDATED: 12:03 EST, 15 November 2012

    Ecuador is dropping more than 20 tons of rat poison on the Galapagos Islands in a bid to kill millions of rodents which, the government claims, are threatening the bird and reptile species that make the islands unique.

    A helicopter will begin dropping nearly 22 tons of specially designed poison bait today, as the government tries to wipe out the non-native rodents by 2020.

    The Pacific archipelago helped inspire Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.
    The invasive Norway and black rats were introduced to the Galapagos by whalers and buccaneers who began visiting the islands in the 17th century
    The invasive Norway and black rats, left, were introduced to the Galapagos Islands, right, by whalers and buccaneers who began visiting the islands in the 17th century

    The invasive Norway and black rats, left, were introduced to the Galapagos Islands, right, by whalers and buccaneers who began visiting the islands in the 17th century
    A helicopter will begin dropping nearly 22 tons of specially designed poison bait on the islands today, as part of a campaign to clear out non-native rodents by 2020A helicopter will begin dropping nearly 22 tons of specially designed poison bait on the islands today, as part of a campaign to clear out non-native rodents by 2020

    The invasive Norway and black rats were introduced by whalers and buccaneers who began visiting the islands in the 17th century.The rodents feed on the eggs and hatchlings of the islands’ native species, which include giant tortoises, lava lizards, snakes, hawks and iguanas. Rats also have depleted the number of plants on which native species feed.

    The rats have critically endangered bird species on the 19-island cluster, 600 miles from Ecuador’s coast.’It’s one of the worst problems the Galapagos have. [Rats] reproduce every three months and eat everything,’ said Juan Carlos Gonzalez, a Nature Conservancy specialist.
    The archipelago inspired Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, and the islands are home to many unique species, like these Galapagos sea lionsThe archipelago inspired Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, and the islands are home to many unique species, like these Galapagos sea lions

    The rats have been feeding on the eggs and hatchlings of the native species like giant tortoises, pictured, and lava lizards, snakes, hawks and iguanasThe rats have been feeding on the eggs and hatchlings of the native species like giant tortoises, pictured, and lava lizards, snakes, hawks and iguanas

    The $1.8m project will be funded by conservation groups and the Galapagos National Park Service.

    ‘This is a very expensive but totally necessary war,’ said Mr Gonzalez.
    Charles Darwin visited the islands during his voyage around the world on the HMS Beagle in the 1830sCharles Darwin visited the islands during his voyage around the world on the HMS Beagle in the 1830s

    Charles Darwin visited the island chain during his voyage around the world on the HMS Beagle in the 1830s.

    Darwin studied the archipelago’s native species and noted that there were subtle differences between the varieties of tortoises and mockingbirds on each of the separate islands.

    His findings later inspired him to develop his theory of evolution.

    The Ecuadorian government now plans to save these unique species by killing off all non-native rodents, beginning with the Galapagos’ smaller islands, without endangering other wildlife.

    The islands where humans reside, Isabela and Santa Cruz, will come last.

    Hawks and iguanas on some islands have already been captured and temporarily moved to prevent them eating the poisoned rodents.

    The director of conservation for the Galapagos National Park Service, Danny Rueda, said the poison had been specially engineered with a strong anti-coagulant to make the rats dry up and disintegrate in less than eight days, without a stench.

    Previous efforts to eradicate invasive species mean goats, cats, burros and pigs have all been removed from various islands.
    The government’s goal is to kill off all non-native rodents, beginning on the Galapagos’ smaller islands, without endangering other wildlifeThe government’s goal is to kill off all non-native rodents, beginning on the Galapagos’ smaller islands, without endangering other wildlife

    The director of conservation for the Galapagos National Park Service, Danny Rueda, said the poison had been specially engineered with a strong anti-coagulant to make the rats dry up and disintegrate in less than eight days without a stenchThe director of conservation for the Galapagos National Park Service, Danny Rueda, said the poison had been specially engineered with a strong anti-coagulant to make the rats dry up and disintegrate in less than eight days without a stench

    The $1.8m project will be funded by conservation groups and the Galapagos National Park Service. Here, park staff are shown testing equipment that will hold the poisonous bait The $1.8m project will be funded by conservation groups and the Galapagos National Park Service. Here, park staff are shown testing equipment that will hold the poisonous bait