Public lecture@Zoom - Origins of the Galápagos Archipelago's Land Animals

Abstract

The land-locked reptiles and mammals on the Galápagos Islands (eastern equatorial Pacific) provided Charles Darwin with fundamental insights into Natural Selection, the mechanism that is largely responsible for driving biological evolution. A key element to the theory was idea that the archipelago’s animals were closely related to ones on the South and Central America.

Until recently, though, a comprehensive overview of the origins of the animals was lacking, principally because the techniques did not exist to establish the closest off-archipelago relatives. DNA sequencing solves this problem and by integrating the information with the various geo-physical controls (ocean currents, volcanoes, and plate tectonics), we can construct a pretty complete scenario that explains what, whence, when and how.

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Speaker Dr Jason Richard ALI

Associate Professor, Department of Earth Sciences, HKU

Achieved research quadruple in the frontline journals of four of the Burlington House's learned societies: Geological Society of London (Geology), Royal Astronomical Society (Astronomy and Geophysics), Society of Antiquaries (History and Pre-history) and the Linnean Society (Biology), with his research of redrawing global map of land life