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Goodbye Galapagos

1/28/2014

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Sadly, the 2014 Galapagos field season is over for me, and I’m now enroute back to Panama via Guayaquil.  In all, we've captured, banded and measured over 140 ground finches so far- a very promising start to the 2014 field season!

After so much talk of finches over the past 2 weeks, here are a few shots of some of the other astounding creatures that we’ve been able to get close to during our time on the islands.

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A male marine iguana basking in the sun at the Charles Darwin Research Station. Their body temperatures drop so much while foraging for seaweed in the cold waters around the Galapagos that they need to return frequently to shore to warm themselves back up. After even a short swim there we usually felt the same way! Photo credit: D. Sharpe
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Another sun-worshipper. Photo credit: L.F. De Leon
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A heap of mostly female marine iguanas, Charles Darwin Research Station. Photo credit: D. Sharpe
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A beautiful red male marine iguana, Charles Darwin Research Station. Photo credit: L.F De Leon
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Sally lightfoot crabs, Charles Darwin Research Station. Photo credit: D. Sharpe
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Sally lightfoot crabs, Charles Darwin Research Station. Photo credit: L.F De Leon
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A baby sea lion rolling around in the sand, Loberia, San Cristobal Island. Photo credit: L.F De Leon
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A female sea lion nursing her baby, Loberia, San Cristobal Island. Photo credit: D. Sharpe
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A great blue heron drying its wings in the wind, Playa Manglecito, Isla San Cristobal. Photo credit: D. Sharpe
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Parting view of Santa Cruz Island from the Itabaca Channel, enroute to Balta airport. Photo credit: D. Sharpe
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Team MAGnificent

1/24/2014

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Between January 14th and 23rd, we were joined by a fantastic and enthusiastic group of Earthwatch volunteers who helped us in all aspects of the project above.  Dubbed Team MAG-nificent (after the large ground finch, G. magnirostris), they assisted us in mist-netting, banding, measuring and observing Darwin’s finches at our two study sites on Santa Cruz Island.

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Sunrise over our more remote field site, El Garrapatero. Volunteers learned to love getting up at 4:30am for this shift! Photo credit: D. Sharpe
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Eartwatch volunteers Kathy Hall and Donna Rabin set up mist-nets at El Garraptero to trap Darwin’s finches. Photo credit: D. Sharpe
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Earthwatch volunteers Tom Kimler and Ken and Jenny Sparrowhawk assist Luis as he measures, bands and takes blood samples from a Darwin’s finch. Photo credit: D. Sharpe
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The team making their way across the lava-strewn landscape of El Garraptero. The endemic Opuntia cacti tower above the dry scrub. Photo credit: L. F. De Leon

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Eartwatch volunteers set up mist-nets at Academy Bay to trap Darwin’s finches. Photo credit: L. F. De Leon
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The team leaving El Garraptero after a hard morning’s work. Photo credit: L. F. De Leon
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Team MAGnificent before.... Photo credit: K. Gotanda
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...and AFTER 7 days working with us! Photo credit: K. Gotanda
Read more about the exploits of Team MAGnificent on Kiyoko’s excellent blog here

You can also read more about our project on Earthwatch’s website, here

 

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Following Darwin’s Finches in the Galapagos

1/24/2014

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We were fortunate to receive a grant this year from Earthwatch Institute to return to the Galapagos Islands, and follow up on an intriguing finding from Luis’ dissertation work here: that human settlement on Santa Cruz Island may be influencing the evolution of beak morphology in the medium ground finch, Geospiza fortis.  Specifically, Luis and colleagues found that there was a greater divergence between small and large-beaked morphs of G. fortis at an undisturbed site (El Garraptero) than at a site adjacent to a human settlement (Academy Bay).  They hypothesized that the abundance of novel human food types at Academy Bay (e.g. rice, potato chips, crackers) may be relaxing selection on beak morphology and resulting in a homogenization of this population of G. fortis (View the original article in Evolution here). 

We’re following up on this work by conducting detailed feeding observations of G. fortis in both perturbed and unperturbed sites, as well as continuing our multi-year program of banding and measuring all 3 species of ground finches found in the area:  the small (G. fuliginosa), medium (G. fortis), and large (G. magnirostris) ground finch.

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A male G. fortis feeding on a seed of Scutia spicata near the Charles Darwin Research Station, Santa Cruz Island. Photo credit: D. Sharpe
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A male G. fortis feeding on chocolate residue from a discarded Milky Way wrapper in the town of Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz Island. Photo credit: Ken Sparrowhawk
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Research Blog

1/24/2014

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I’ve decided to start a small blog to share news and photos from my field work, research updates, and other interesting tidbits.  Hopefully this will be of interest to some!

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