Popularized by the research studies and works of Charles Darwin, the Galápagos Islands acquired popularity for their abundance of endemic plants and animals—types discovered no place else in the world. But another Pacific Ocean island chain about 3800 kilometers (2400 miles) to the south, promoted by an unique about a shipwreck and castaway, matches the Galápagos in its abundance of endemic plants.
Robinson Crusoe and Santa Clara islands, part of the Juan Fernández island group off of Chile, show up in this image, obtained on November 7, 2018, by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8. The 2nd image listed below programs a comprehensive view of the vegetated location surrounding San Juan Bautista, the island chain’s primary town.
“The Robinson Crusoe and Santa Clara islands have a special beauty due to their rugged geography, their cliffs, their rock formations, and their unique native flora and fauna,” stated Javiera Meza, who heads the preservation of biological variety area of Chile’s National Forest Corporation (CONAF).
For an island covering simply 48 square kilometers (19 square miles), Robinson Crusoe Island has an exceptional quantity of plant biodiversity. According to Meza, the island supports 149 acknowledged native plant taxa. Of those, 91 types (61 percent) are endemic. But this mini-hotspot of biodiversity is now threatened by the intro of intrusive plants; particularly, maqui, mora, and murta.
Amid the blanket of green in these images, the darkest green at high elevations is generally luma (Myrceugenia fernándeziana)—a woody, blooming evergreen tree endemic to the island. The dark green locations at lower elevations around San Juan Bautista are forest plantations with non-native trees: radiata pine, eucalyptus, and macrocarpa cypress. The extreme, lighter green is maqui—an aggressive intrusive shrub that grows in thick thickets.
Nearby, Isla Santa Clara appears totally brown. This remains in part due to the fact that the island is covered in non-woody greenery that dries up in between November and March. Woody shrubs that do grow here tend to be little and spread. On both islands, locations of light brown-yellow suggest disintegration. This happens where the landscape is naturally exposed, assisted by previous fires that have actually left the soil unsteady.
Humans have actually likewise presented animals that have actually likewise impacted the landscape. In specific, bunnies presented to the islands in the 1930s contended for food and environment, adding to issues of disintegration, loss of native plants, and the damage of nesting websites for pink-footed shearwaters. In 2005, Isla Santa Clara ended up being the very first island in Chile to effectively get rid of these intrusive bunnies.
The island chain, consisting of Alexander Selkirk (west of this image) and its islets, was designated as a national forest in 1935 and a UNESCO biosphere reserve in 1977. Such classifications were a long method off when sailor Alexander Selkirk was marooned on the islands in the early 1700s—an experience believed to have actually partly influenced Daniel Defoe’s book Robinson Crusoe.
NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, utilizing Landsat information from the U.S. Geological Survey.
