Hunter Kerley

10/30/2017

Species Arrival to Galapagos

Here we get to look at the in-depth coverage of how many of the now native species on
the Galapagos arrived many years ago. With so many species being mildly like terrestrial species
on the mainland of South America, the question always begged. How did they get there? The two
proposed methods of how species arrived roughly 5-10 million years ago were either carried by
air, or by sea.

These two proposed methods proved to be correct due to the distance of the islands from
the mainland, with the air being the most prevalent form of travel. The wind can carry light seeds
to those distances, which allows for many of the flower species, but for the larger seeds, many of
them were carried by bird. Birds flew by air naturally, allowing them to settle onto the islands
easily and nestle their way into the environmental, along with the birds often came large seeds
within their bowels or on their feathers.

The second method being transportation by sea, which is how many species of saltbush,
mangroves, and floating fruit can find their way across the world. Large rafts or trees of
vegetation can also be reason for certain animal species to be able to travel long distances to the
islands. The raft proposal also points to the reason of having no large native mammal species
anywhere on the island. Pointing back to how destructive invasive goat species can be, with the
island having no natural defenses against large mammals. Along with rafting system, many of
the local sea species swam there naturally with the current systems, and decided to settle along
the growing coral coast.

Since that time, we as humans have made impacts to the island that introduced invasive
species, took away land and resources from the animals, and polluted the area. We are quickly
trying to repair our damages by cleaning up the area of both pollutants and animals so that we
may again have a pristine oasis in the sea.