Island Patterns

Thoughts

1. Looking for unique species of plants at remote areas (Siwa, Aswan, Sinai).
2. White people in South Africa, how about those as 'founder populations'? How about White people in Australia, in North America?
3. I do not buy the idea that mutations are accidental! I only see it 'polite' way of saying that science has yet to discover the patterns by which mutations happen to serve a non-accidental evolution purpose.
4. I do not agree that species are not perfectly adapted to their environments. I sense that there is something wrong with that. I believe species are indeed most perfectly adapted to their current natural environments. Or what?
5. I see the events in history that result in the creation of islands or separation of land are no accident. I see them as natural developments that take place within grand patterns to serve a purpose.
6. My comments above about refusing the thought of accidents, and imperfection might sound unscientific, yet I believe science might prove them one day. Science, to me, is not and should not be the only source of knowledge and it can be guided and inspired by other sources of knowledge.

Digest

• Drosophila species (fruit flies): 1500 worldwide, 500 in Hawaiian islands, 100 picture-winged
• endemic: species found in only one area
• Dispersion of ancestor species (founder population) into new locations and isolation of such locations (such as isolated islands) allow forces natural selection to evolve them into new species
• Natural selection is confined to the gene pool of the ancestors save only for occasional rare mutations
• The lineages through which the Drosophila species have evolved can be traced by analyzing the banding patterns on the chromosomes in the salivary glands of the their larvae
• The oldest islands have the first ancestors while the newest formed islands have the most recently evolved species
• Island biotas illustrate that:
• there is a historical element in the match between organisms and environments
• there is not just one perfect organism for each type of environment

Drosophila

Questions

1. How do islands form?
2. How do species specialize and evolve on an isolated island?

Islands and Speciation

Thoughts

1. The theory of evolution of species and what Islam and the Quran teach, how can they be reconciled?
2. In Upper Egypt, people are more isolated then those in the Nile Delta area. What effect, if any, does this have on them?
3. Taking plant species from such remote islands and reintroducing them elsewhere would be an interesting idea.
4. Breeding, of animals, taken from elsewhere can be interesting.
5. 'Specialization' of humans when isolated.
6. Specialization of coexisting humans.
7. How and why do populations diverge despite being in the same geographic location?

Digest

• Galápagos Islands are volcanic islands
• Location: Isolated in the Pacific Ocean about 1000 km west of Ecuador and 750 km from the island of Cocos, which is itself 500 km from Central America.
• Description: At more than 500 m above sea level the vegetation is open grassland. Below this is a humid zone of forest that grades into a coastal strip of desert vegetation with some endemic species of prickly pear cactus (Opuntia).
• Darwin's finches: Fourteen species of finch are found on the islands.
• Microsatellite: The evolutionary relationships amongst them have been traced by molecular techniques
• The 14 distinct species of finches differ in shape and feeding habits.
• Isolation of individual islands within the archipelago has led to the evolution of a series of species each matching its own environment.

Small ground finch (Geospiza fuliginosa)

Questions

1. How do populations specialize despite not being geographically separated?
2. What islands, other than land surrounded by water, exist? (Oases?)
3. Let's explore the interesting subject of rare and specialized species in isolated islands and the process by which they evolve!