The archipelagos of the world have revealed more about evolution to us than anywhere else. From the Canaries and the Galapagos, early travellers noted down how different the flora and fauna were, then a certain gentleman had his goose cooked on Hawaii and we realised that all the remote Pacific Islands were also full of unique species. The richness of diversity on the Hawaiian islands is created and restricted by their geology. This story was based on the habitat provided to blind shrimps by lava flows.
As the area of volcanic islands increases and then slowly declines, environmental change influences speciation rapidly. Like the Galapagos, the volcanic peaks that are the islands form in sequence, allowing a study of the evolutionary radiations as they unfold on each island. Basically, this is a brand new,…
