Giant turtles: descendants of volcanoes

2003/10/07 Elhuyar Zientzia

• Zoologia

On the island of Isabela, in Galapagos, there are five volcanoes and in each volcano lives a subspecies of giant turtle. The one living on the slopes of the Alcedo volcano is Geochelone nigra vandenburghi. This subspecies is the most abundant – between 3,000 and 5,000 specimens – but also the least genetic diversity. The data is striking for researchers, since normally in large populations the diversity is greater. Therefore, they have analyzed the heterozygosity and concluded that this population has suffered a hard sama of bottles, coinciding with the eruption of the volcano Alcedo 100,000 years ago.