The Galapagos Islands

The Galapagos archipelago consists of a series of volcanoes rising above the Galapagos platform, which lies on the Nazca Plate, which is moving eastward such that the entire assemblage will eventually disappear into the Chile-Peru Trench 

The Geography of Phytochemical Races, Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 

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Fig. 6.1 Location of the Galapagos Islands in relation to the South American mainland. The darkened island is Albermerle, Isla Isabela, in the Ecuadorian system...

The existence of a species of tomato on the Galapagos Islands was first noted by Charles Darwin. Despite a moderate level of variation, Lycopersicon cheesmanii Riley is considered the only tomato species on the islands. All populations examined exhibited morphological and physiological characteristics that clearly... 

Adersen, A., Adersen, H. and Brimer, L. 1988. Cyanogeiric constituents in plants from the Galapagos Islands. Biochem. Syst. Ecol. 16 65-77. 

Corkill, L. 1942. The inheritance of cyanogenesis. N. Z. J. Sci. Tech., Series B 23 178-193. Cowlishaw, M. G., Bickerstaffe, R. and Connor, H. E. 1983. Intraspecific variation in the epicu-ticular wax composition of four species of Chionochloa. Biochem. Syst. Ecol. 11 247-259. Cox, A. 1983. Ages of the Galapagos Islands. Pages 11-23 in R. I. Bowman, M. Berson and A. E. Leviton (eds.) Patterns of Evolution in Galapagos Organisms. AAAS, Pacific Division. San Francisco. 

Lawesson J. E. 1988. Contributions to the flora of the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador. Phytologia 65 228-230. 

Wendel, J. F. and Percy, R. G. 1991. Allozyme diversity and introgression in the Galapagos Islands endemic Gossypium darwinii and its relationship to continental G. barbadense. Biochem. Syst. Ecol. 18 517-528. 

Wessels, P. L., Holzapfel, C. W., van Wyk, B.-E. and Marais, W. 1996. Plicataloside, an 0-0-diglucosylated naphthalene derivative from Aloe plicatilis. Phytochemistry 41 1547-1551. Whittaker, R. H. 1961. Comments on the Klamath region and conifer diversity. Madrono 16 5. Wiggins, I. L. 1971. Flora of the Galapagos Islands. I. L. Wiggins and D. M. Porter (eds.) Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA. 

Kruska, D. and Rohrs, M. (1974). Comparative-quantitative investigations on brains of feral pigs from the Galapagos Islands and of European domestic pigs. Zeitschriftfur AnatomieundEntwicklungsgeschichte 144,61-73. 

Report existing knowledge/facts Present-active Nitrite reductases catalyze the one-electron reduction of nitrite. (From Houser, 2001) The Galapagos Islands sit on a large volcanic platform in the Pacific Ocean. (From Harpp, 1998)... 

Roque-Albelo, L. (2000). The tiger moths (Arctiidae) of the Galapagos Islands, their biogeography and life history. In Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Lepidopterists Society, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, July 2000. 

Around deep-sea vents lives a very interesting species of animal the tubeworm. Some tubeworms can grow to be almost 8 feet (3 m) long. They were first discovered in the 1970s around some hydrothermal vents near the Galapagos Islands off the coast of South America. Since then many tubeworms have been found at deep-sea vents all over the world. 

Chapman, R.F., Espelie, K.E. and Peck, S.B. (2000). Cuticular hydrocarbons of grasshoppers from the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador. Biochem. Syst. Ecol., 28, 579-588. 

Cox, A., and G.B.Dalrymple Palaeomagnetism and Potassium-Argon Ages of Some Volcanic Rocks from the Galapagos Islands. Nature 209, 776 (1966). 

When Charles Darwin was climbing the rocks of the Galapagos Islands—pursuing the finches that would eventually bear his name—he must have cut his finger occasionally or scraped a knee. Young adventurer that he was, he probably paid no attention to the little stream of blood trickling out. Pain was a fact of life to the intrepid island explorer, and it had to be borne patiently if any work were to get done. 

An examination of Figure 6 also illustrates other problems with marine shell samples. Four samples from the environment of the Galapagos Islands ranged from a little more than —4.0% to a little less than +0.5%. This equates to an apparent variation of ca. 850 years between... 

Jimenez, R. (1981). Composition and distribution of phytoplankton in the upweUing system of the Galapagos Islands. In Coastal UpweUing. (Richards, F. A., ed.). American Geophysical Union, pp. 327-338. 

Koutavas A., Lynch-Stieglitz J., Marchitto T. M. J., and Sachs J. P. (2002) Deglacial and Holocene climate record from the Galapagos Islands El Nino linked to Ice Age climate. Science 297(5579), 226-230. 

Propylene has the same general characteristics found for the other hydrocarbons. Leg I concentrations vary from 3.43 0.49 X 10 ml/l near the Galapagos Islands to 0.59 0.07 X 10" ml/l for an area located s 1500 miles southeast of Hawaii. Leg II exhibits what appears to be a... 

Ethane concentrations exhibit the same type of relative constancy as methane. The only variable and high concentrations (relative to open ocean values) of 0.50 X 10 ml/1 are found near the Galapagos Islands and Ecuador. There is good agreement between the average concentration found in 1972 ( 0.20 X 10" ml/1.) and 1974 (0.28 X 10 ml/L). 

Propane is quite similar to ethane in distribution. The highest and most interesting concentrations are also found near the Galapagos Islands and Ecuador. As with ethane, relative agreement is foimd between the average concentration obtained in 1972 and that found in 1974 0.30 X 10" ml/1 and 0.20 X 10 ml/1, respectively. 

A possible area of future work on the correlation between dissolved fight hydrocarbons and biomass is the vicinity of the Galapagos Islands. The large and variable concentrations found in that area coupled with the transporting mechanisms there would be ideal for studying production and transport away from source areas. 

The primary predators of marine lizards are hawks, herons, frigate birds, and short-eared owls. In recent years, as the human populations of the Galapagos Islands have grown, humans, dogs, and pigs have also become predators of the lizards. 

Marine lizards usually have ample food, but certain conditions can reduce the availability of algae. In the past, El Nino phenomenon, which causes ocean water around the Galapagos Islands to warm, has killed the algae species that the marine iguana eats. The only algae that survived the event were brown algae, which are toxic to marine iguanas, so many lizards died. El Nino is not a yearly event, however, and in most years lizards feed safely. 

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