Panoramas of the Galapagos

Being able to visit the Galapagos Islands was a dream come true. I have read numerous articles and watched countless nature specials about the islands and their importance to our understanding of evolution, speciation, and conservation. I am still ecstatic that I was so privileged to have an opportunity to observe the flora and fauna of these unique islands for myself.

Darwin noted, "...by far the most remarkable feature in the natural history of this archipelago...is that the different islands to a considerable extent are inhabited by a different set of beings...I never dreamed that islands, about fifty or sixty miles apart, and most of them in sight of each other, formed of precisely the same rocks, placed under a quite similar climate, rising to a nearly equal height, would have been differently tenanted (Voyage of the Beagle, 1937)." Based on quotes like these, I had always pictured a wide variety of wildlife with minimal differences in the landscape. I think the thing that I was most surprised by was the wide variety of habitats, even within a single island.

One of the first areas of observation was the harbor. After first arriving, a group of us sat outside to grab lunch and we watched as the locals as they sold the days fresh catch while a brown pelican and Galapagos sea lion hung out waiting to pick up the scraps and huge frigate birds flew overhead. This was an excellent example of how humans integrated with wildlife. A collection of colorful boats were lined up along the coast and more sea lions swum under and around them. Walking through most of the city and the hike to the Darwin Research Station, an area just inland of the coast was a good example of the Arid Zone with plenty of cactus and other hardy plants. 

Later in the trip, we hiked through the highlands, much higher above sea level, and we were literally surrounded by dense, verdant vegetation. This seemed like the Scalesia Zone where, "the trunk and branches of trees int this zone are covered with epiphytes, mostly mosses and liverworts, but also ferns (Jackson, 1993)." It was also interesting to compare this area, where there were almost no signs of human influence, to the harbor where people have made significant changes to the landscape. 

On yet another excursion, we visited the hypersaline lagoons on Isabela Island, home of the endemic Galapagos flamingos. Again, this habitat was completely different than anything we had seen on other parts of the trip (also exciting is that this photo won Project Dragonfly's photo contest in the panoramic category, and since I do not consider myself a photographer, I think this speaks volumes to the natural beauty of this habitat).
Later, after the class ended we took a trip to Las Grietas or the crack where we enjoyed snorkeling a new underwater habitat, a brackish water area that was fed by an outlet to the ocean as well as fresh streams. On the hike there we passed Salt Marshes, where locals harvest salt that is used for preserving fish, and even though this high salt area was similar to the lagoon on Isabella Island, it was still also quite distinct.

Another trek led us to the Tintoreras islets which showed us another habitat and gave us a window into what the early colonization of the Galapagos might have looked like. This area was almost entirely ah ah (fast cooling) lava. The white covering the rocks isn't just bird droppings like I initially imagined, but is actually lichen which breaks down the lava rock into soil that is suitable for other plants. Lava lizards and marine iguanas scurry over the jagged formations and a few mangroves are early colonizers.

The Littoral or Coastal Zone is the habitat along the water's edge. Unlike many areas where the plants are selected for based on climate, the plants here are characterized by their salt tolerance (Jackson, 1993). Mangroves line the coast providing soil stabilization and shelter. While we were snorkeling we watched a variety of small fish hiding in the propagules of the red mangroves and on land we saw marine iguanas hanging out in the mangrove's shade. But even the look of the coast changes from island to island and from beach to beach. On Santa Cruz we were out on the beach at sunset when we joined the Mola Mola group for their sea turtle nest surveys and this beach had light-colored sand while later a group of us traveled to Floreana Island and one of the beaches we passed had a similar light sand while the next had a dark sand that looked like it was made more from the lava rock. The beach on Santa Cruz also seemed to have more vegetation while Floreana had more lava rock along the coast.

Even in scanning over the photos I wanted to use for this post, I feel like it would be easy to assume that each of them came from a completely different location, and yet, these are all photos from my amazing Galapagos journey. Of course, nothing can compare to getting to see a Galapagos Tortoise in the wild, but I was surprised to find how many different habitats are contained on a tiny set of islands of the West coast of Ecuador and how much I enjoyed seeing the variety of landscapes. The staggering number of panoramic pictures I took seemed like a good indication that the scenic beauty of the different ecosystems was a good topic to share with others.

References
Darwin, C. (1937). Chapter XVII: Galapagos Archipelago. In the Voyage of the Beagle (pp. 376-405). New Yourk City, NY: P.F. Collier & Son Corporation.
Jackson, M. H. (1993). Galapagos, a natural history. University of Calgary press. 

by Lindsay Mayer