Transcript

Galápagos research

DR. DAVID ROBINSON

We're in the Pacific, about 1000 kilometres west of South America on the equator. Martin Wikelski is heading for his research site. It's an island called Santa Fe, part of the Galápagos archipelago. Santa Fe, like all the Galápagos Islands, is the tip of a volcano that became land only a few million years ago. Many of the animals and plants that now live there are found nowhere else on Earth. These island species have long fascinated biologists interested in evolution, but this is also a good place for animal physiologists to study. Like all animals found in isolated oceanic island groups, the species found in Galápagos are astonishingly unafraid of people because of the absence of predators. And even on an inhabited island on a hotel patio, marine iguanas, a Galápagos species, lounge in the shade of the chairs. With few natural predators, they don't see people as a threat. They're easy to observe and study, and a source of fascination.