{"id":1227,"date":"2025-09-17T09:07:27","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T14:07:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/billmiller.photography\/?p=1227"},"modified":"2025-09-17T09:49:48","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T14:49:48","slug":"galapagos-origins-of-the-islands-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/billmiller.photography\/?p=1227","title":{"rendered":"Galapagos: Origins of the Islands &amp; Life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"400\" height=\"292\" src=\"https:\/\/billmiller.photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Large-lava-flows-form-in-first-eruption-at-Fernandina-volcano-since-2020-Galapagos-bg-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1229\" srcset=\"https:\/\/billmiller.photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Large-lava-flows-form-in-first-eruption-at-Fernandina-volcano-since-2020-Galapagos-bg-copy.jpg 400w, https:\/\/billmiller.photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Large-lava-flows-form-in-first-eruption-at-Fernandina-volcano-since-2020-Galapagos-bg-copy-300x219.jpg 300w, https:\/\/billmiller.photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Large-lava-flows-form-in-first-eruption-at-Fernandina-volcano-since-2020-Galapagos-bg-copy-230x168.jpg 230w, https:\/\/billmiller.photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Large-lava-flows-form-in-first-eruption-at-Fernandina-volcano-since-2020-Galapagos-bg-copy-350x256.jpg 350w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Fernandina Island eruption in March 2024<\/em>. <em>Image credit: IGEPN<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>A&nbsp;<em>hot spot<\/em>&nbsp;is a weakness in the Earth\u2019s mantle where magma can break through and possibly form a volcano. Such a hot spot exists on the Nazca tectonic plate&nbsp;located just off the&nbsp;western coast of South America, and&nbsp;this hot spot&nbsp;is responsible for the creation of the&nbsp;Gal\u00e1pagos Islands.&nbsp;As the Nazca tectonic plate&nbsp;has&nbsp;moved&nbsp;southeast&nbsp;over&nbsp;the&nbsp;hot spot, new islands&nbsp;formed in the west while older islands drifted&nbsp;southeast and eroded over millions of years.<strong>&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The ages of the islands vary from estimates of 4\u00bd million years in the southeast to less than\u00a0a\u00a0million\u00a0years\u00a0for Fernandina, the\u00a0newest\u00a0island\u00a0in the west. There may be older islands that have completly eroded and\u00a0are\u00a0now underwater, and there are likely to be new islands that do not yet exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As the photo indicates, Fernandina has an active volcano.&nbsp;With lava flowing&nbsp;to the sea, the island is still growing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>New islands begin as a&nbsp;barren, lifeless&nbsp;mass of lava and rock. Over&nbsp;thousands to millions of years,&nbsp;they&nbsp;can become&nbsp;fertile and lush through a slow but remarkable sequence of&nbsp;ecological processes.&nbsp;&nbsp;Fernandina is still largely volcanic and barren, but&nbsp;it&nbsp;already has&nbsp;Lava cactus&nbsp;growing in cracks&nbsp;and&nbsp;mangroves&nbsp;along the coast,&nbsp;with&nbsp;Marine Iguanas, birds, and insects contributing nutrients to developing soil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Arrival of Life<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n<p>The earliest colonizers would have been&nbsp;wind-dispersed or water-dispersed plant seeds, as well as&nbsp;spores&nbsp;from ferns and mosses.&nbsp;Plant&nbsp;seeds&nbsp;may&nbsp;also have arrived on&nbsp;floating vegetation&nbsp;rafts,&nbsp;created&nbsp;from trees and&nbsp;plants&nbsp;torn from the ground&nbsp;and&nbsp;swept&nbsp;by rivers&nbsp;to the sea&nbsp;during extreme flooding on the mainland.&nbsp;Many&nbsp;seeds&nbsp;may have sprouted,&nbsp;some&nbsp;may&nbsp;have failed, but seeds are still arriving in the same way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Th<\/strong>e arrival of animal species in the&nbsp;Gal\u00e1pagos Islands&nbsp;also&nbsp;happened gradually over&nbsp;millions of years. Because the islands were never connected to the mainland,&nbsp;every species had to arrive via long-distance dispersal&nbsp;\u2014 by air, sea, or&nbsp;mats of&nbsp;floating vegetation.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Birds arrived at various times over last 2\u20133 million years,&nbsp;and they could still be arriving.&nbsp;&nbsp;Birds&nbsp;are known to carry undigested seeds in their stomachs.&nbsp;Seeds&nbsp;can&nbsp;also&nbsp;stick to their plumage and to muddy feed. So what arrived first, seeds or birds?&nbsp;&nbsp;Perhaps it was at the same time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A non-flying bird, the Gal\u00e1pagos Penguin, likely arrived&nbsp;from southern South America&nbsp;via the&nbsp;Humboldt and Cromwell Currents, about&nbsp;1\u20132 million years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another bird, possibly the&nbsp;double-crested cormorant found&nbsp;along the Pacific coast of North America, arrived about 2 million years ago.&nbsp;&nbsp;For the last&nbsp;few hundred thousand to a&nbsp;million years or so, the cormorants in the Gal\u00e1pagos have had&nbsp;stubby wings, and&nbsp;have been unable to&nbsp;fly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>R<\/strong>eptiles,\u00a0including\u00a0the tortoise, iguanas, and lizards, are thought to\u00a0have\u00a0arrived ~2\u20135 million years ago on rafts of vegetation. With skin covered in scales that resist drying, being cold-blooded, and requiring little food or water, reptiles were ideal candidates for a long\u00a0accidental\u00a0voyage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Marine Iguana in the Gal\u00e1pagos today is now the only iguana&nbsp;in the world that&nbsp;swims, dives, and feeds unerwater.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>A<\/strong>lthough Central and South America have&nbsp;a diverse range of frogs, not a single amphibian naturally found its way to the Gal\u00e1pagos. Their skin must remain wet, and they could not survive two weeks in the equatorial sun. Falling into salt water would be lethal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Adaptation&nbsp;<\/strong><strong>Through Natural Selection&nbsp;<\/strong><strong>and Darwin<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n<p>The animals that were lucky or unlucky enough to make it to the Gal\u00e1pagos Island alive may have found the conditions such that they could not survive, and this may have depended on which animal and&nbsp;on&nbsp;which island they landed, and when. Many animals that found a way to survive in their new home faced either hostile or at least challenging environments. Some had to adapt to an environment different from the one&nbsp;from&nbsp;where they came, or die.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignleft size-full\" style=\"margin-right:var(--wp--preset--spacing--30);margin-left:var(--wp--preset--spacing--30)\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"233\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/billmiller.photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Darwin.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1230\" srcset=\"https:\/\/billmiller.photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Darwin.png 233w, https:\/\/billmiller.photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Darwin-230x296.png 230w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 233px) 100vw, 233px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Charles Darwin joined the&nbsp;HMS Beagle&nbsp;in&nbsp;1831&nbsp;as a&nbsp;naturalist and companion&nbsp;to Captain Robert FitzRoy. He was&nbsp;22 years old&nbsp;at&nbsp;the beginning of the voyage, and he had just finished studying theology at Cambridge University, though his real passion was&nbsp;natural history. The purpose of the Beagle\u2019s voyage&nbsp;was to&nbsp;survey and chart the coasts of South America, update naval maps, and conduct&nbsp;scientific and geologic exploration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The&nbsp;ship&nbsp;stopped in the Gal\u00e1pagos Islands from September to October, 1835, visiting six islands&nbsp;during&nbsp;their five-week stay. During his exploration, Darwin focused on three activities:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:8px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong><u>Collecting<\/u>\u00a0<\/strong>specimens &#8211; fossils, plants, animals which he later studied and documented.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><u>Observing<\/u>\u00a0<\/strong>the unique behaviors and physical characteristics of the islands\u2019 species,\u00a0<em>noting how they varied from one island to another<\/em>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><u>Recording<\/u>&nbsp;<\/strong>his observations in great detail, noting environmental conditions, species differences, and geological features.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>After returning to England at the end of the voyage in October 1836, other than starting a family resulting in ten children and dealing with some health issues, be began extensive research using his notes to guide him. He engaged in ongoing correspondence with other naturalists and scientists to answer questions and improve his understanding of the relevant sciences.<strong>&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As one example, Darwin sent many of the bird specimens he collected in the Gal\u00e1pagos Islands to&nbsp;John Gould, a prominent British ornithologist and illustrator. Darwin labeled&nbsp;his&nbsp;specimens as finches, mockingbirds, warblers, wrens,&nbsp;and others&nbsp;based on beak shapes and sizes. Gould, however, identified the specimens as separate species of finches, highlighting their variations in beak shape and size. Darwin&nbsp;accepted his mistake and&nbsp;realized that the&nbsp;variation among finch species across islands&nbsp;supported the idea of&nbsp;a species adapting to different environments.&nbsp;But how could this happen?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Darwin knew that traits (visible traits in his time such as beak shape, color, &amp; size in birds) were passed to offspring from parents. He also understood there was a variety of traits within every population of organisms.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Darwin\u2019s data&nbsp;led&nbsp;to&nbsp;his&nbsp;conclusion that these trait changes over time allow an organism to adapt to changing environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here&nbsp;is&nbsp;how&nbsp;<em>adaption<\/em>&nbsp;works step by step given modern day knowledge:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Variation already exists in a population due to random genetic mutations and recombination during reproduction.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>An environmental change occurs \u2014 this could be climate change, a new predator, a shift in available food sources, disease, etc.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Some individuals in the population&nbsp;<em>may<\/em>&nbsp;already have&nbsp;beneficial&nbsp;traits (due to earlier&nbsp;trait&nbsp;variation) that make them better suited to the new environment. If the environment changes but no individuals have beneficial traits, the population may decline sharply, migrate if possible, or face extinction.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The individuals who have beneficial traits are more likely to survive and reproduce, passing on their advantageous traits&nbsp;to offspring.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The individuals without the beneficial traits may die, or at least become an ever-smaller part of the population.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Over time, those&nbsp;beneficial&nbsp;traits become more common in the population \u2014 this is evolution&nbsp;explained&nbsp;by&nbsp;<em>natural selection<\/em>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>The environmental change comes first, and natural selection acts on existing variation. Traits don\u2019t evolve \u201cin anticipation\u201d of future changes. Evolution has no foresight \u2014 it\u2019s reactive, not proactive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignleft size-full\" style=\"margin-right:var(--wp--preset--spacing--30);margin-left:var(--wp--preset--spacing--30)\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"227\" src=\"https:\/\/billmiller.photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Natural-Section-finches-1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1233\" srcset=\"https:\/\/billmiller.photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Natural-Section-finches-1.png 300w, https:\/\/billmiller.photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Natural-Section-finches-1-230x174.png 230w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>If trait changes driven by environmental pressure become significant enough, an organism&nbsp;can evolve into a new species&nbsp;that&nbsp;usually&nbsp;can no longer breed with the former species&nbsp;to create fertile offspring. This process is called&nbsp;<em>speciation<\/em>, and it&#8217;s a key outcome of evolution by&nbsp;natural selection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another term, \u201c<em>adaptive radiation<\/em>\u201d is like speciation but done \u201crapidly\u201d. It is driven by new environments&nbsp;(such as an island, or a different volcanos&nbsp;on the same island)&nbsp;followed by natural selection. Instead of one species evolving into two species, perhaps because of reproductive isolation, adaptive radiation will give rise to many species from one.&nbsp;&nbsp;Adaptive radiation is what happened in the&nbsp;Gal\u00e1pagos&nbsp;with finches, tortoises, mockingbirds, and some plants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the&nbsp;Gal\u00e1pagos Islands,&nbsp;there are many&nbsp;<em>endemic<\/em>&nbsp;species. In biology \u201c<em>endemic<\/em>\u201d refers to a species that is native to and restricted to a specific geographic area, meaning it is not found naturally anywhere else in the world. As already mentioned, since animals first settled in the&nbsp;Gal\u00e1pagos,&nbsp;many faced environmental changes. Evolution through natural selection together with&nbsp;<em>speciation<\/em>&nbsp;explains the origin of&nbsp;many&nbsp;endemic species found in the&nbsp;&nbsp;Gal\u00e1pagos&nbsp;Islands.&nbsp;It explains how a cormorant became flightless, or how an iguana became a swimmer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An example of adaptive radiation is one finch species \u201cquickly\u201d evolving into fourteen different species.&nbsp;Finches&nbsp;likely&nbsp;spread to multiple islands,&nbsp;each with different climates, vegetation, and food sources. Once on separate islands, populations became&nbsp;geographically isolated,&nbsp;and with&nbsp;limited gene flow&nbsp;between islands, these groups began to&nbsp;evolve independently.&nbsp;Some species now coexist on the same island&nbsp;but&nbsp;in&nbsp;different ecological niches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"638\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/billmiller.photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image-1-638x1024.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1235\" style=\"width:211px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/billmiller.photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image-1-638x1024.png 638w, https:\/\/billmiller.photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image-1-187x300.png 187w, https:\/\/billmiller.photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image-1-768x1233.png 768w, https:\/\/billmiller.photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image-1-957x1536.png 957w, https:\/\/billmiller.photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image-1-1276x2048.png 1276w, https:\/\/billmiller.photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image-1-1000x1605.png 1000w, https:\/\/billmiller.photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image-1-230x369.png 230w, https:\/\/billmiller.photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image-1-350x562.png 350w, https:\/\/billmiller.photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image-1-480x771.png 480w, https:\/\/billmiller.photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image-1-scaled.png 1595w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 638px) 100vw, 638px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally, in 1859, twenty-three years after returning from the Galapagos, Darwin finally published&nbsp;<em>On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He feared backlash from his conclusions, so an&nbsp;irrefutable scientific case&nbsp;before going public was needed.&nbsp;This required a lot of research and scientific collaboration.&nbsp;Darwin also understood that his theory&nbsp;challenged religious beliefs&nbsp;about the creation of life, and he once described publishing the theory as like \u201cconfessing to a murder.\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;Darwin wanted to anticipate and address these potential objections&nbsp;before publication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The final push to publish, however, was a similar theory independently developed by another naturist, Alfred Russel Wallace. Darwin, a scientific perfectionist,&nbsp;wanted to ensure that he was recognized as the originator of the theory of natural selection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Darwin was&nbsp;on the right track&nbsp;about natural selection,&nbsp;but his theory was&nbsp;incomplete&nbsp;due to the scientific limitations of his era.&nbsp;&nbsp;Unfortunately, he did not know about Gregor Mendel&#8217;s work&nbsp;\u2014 even though Mendel\u2019s experiments on heredity were published during Darwin\u2019s lifetime. Had he known about Mendel\u2019s&nbsp;clear, mathematical work on dominant and recessive traits, it might have helped him greatly in explaining&nbsp;variation and inheritance&nbsp;\u2014 key elements of evolution by natural selection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The discovery of&nbsp;DNA&nbsp;in 1953 revealed the molecular structure behind&nbsp;heredity and mutation.&nbsp;This allowed scientists to trace&nbsp;evolutionary relationships&nbsp;through&nbsp;genetic sequencing, something Darwin could never have imagined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In summary, natural selection is a robust scientific theory&nbsp;developed and improved over decades&nbsp;that explains how evolutionary changes occur in populations over time. It is a foundational concept in biology that is supported by a wealth of evidence, making it a critical component of our understanding of evolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A&nbsp;hot spot&nbsp;is a weakness in the Earth\u2019s mantle where magma can break through and possibly form a volcano. Such a hot spot [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1243,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Galapagos: Origins of the Islands &amp; Life - bill miller photography<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/billmiller.photography\/?p=1227\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Galapagos: Origins of the Islands &amp; Life - bill miller photography\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A&nbsp;hot spot&nbsp;is a weakness in the Earth\u2019s mantle where magma can break through and possibly form a volcano. 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