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aslanov

 
F.
Recently, die Grants witnessed another form of natural selection acting on the medium ground 
finch: competition from bigger, stronger cousins. In 1982, a third finch, the large ground finch, came to live 
on Daphne Major. The stout bills of these birds resemble the business end of a crescent wrench. Their arrival 
was the first such colonization recorded on the Galapagos in nearly a century of scientific observation. 'We 
realized,' Peter Grant says, 'we had a very unusual and potentially important event to follow. For 20 years, 
the large ground finch coexisted with the medium ground finch, which shared five supply of large seeds with 
its bigger-billed relative. Then, in 2002 and 2003, another drought struck. None of the birds nested that year, 
and many died out. Medium ground finches with large bills, crowded out of feeding areas by the more 
powerful large ground finches, were hit particularly hard. 
G.
When wetter weather returned in 2004, and the finches nested again, the new generation of the 
medium ground finch was dominated by smaller birds with smaller bills, able to survive on smaller seeds. 
This situation, says Peter Grant, marked the first time that biologists have been able to follow the complete 


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process of an evolutionary change due to competition between, species and the strongest response to natural 
selection that he had seen in 33 years of tracking Galapagos finches. 
H.
On the inhabited island of Santa Cruz, just south of Daphne Major, Andrew Hendry of McGill 
University and Jeffrey Podos of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst have discovered a new, man-
made twist in finch evolution. Their study focused on birds living near the Academy Bay research 
station, on the fringe of the town of Puerto Ayora. The human population of the area has been growing 
fast—from 900 people in 1974 to 9,582 In 2001. Today Puerto Ayorn is full of hotels and mai tai bars,' 
Hendry says. 'People have taken tills extremely arid place and tried to turn it into a Caribbean resort. 
I.
Academy Bay records dating back to the early 1960s show that medium ground finches captured 
there had either small or large bills. Very few of the birds had mid-size bills. The finches appeared to be in 
the early stages of a new adaptive radiation: If the trend continued, the medium ground finch on Santa Cruz 
could split into two distinct subspecies, specializing in different types of seeds. But in the late 1960s and 
early 70s, medium ground finches with medium-sized bills began to thrive at Academy Bay along with 
small and large billed birds. The booming human population had introduced new food sources, including 
exotic plants and bird feeding stations stocked with rice. Billsize, once critical to the fishes' survival, no 
longer made any difference. 'Now an intermediate bill can do fine’ Hendry says. 
J.
At a control site distant from Puerto Ayora, and relatively untouched by humane, the medium 
ground finch population remains split between large- and small-billed birds. On undisturbed parts of Santa 
Cruz, there Is no ecological niche for a middling medium ground finch, and the birds continue to diversify. 
In town, though there are still many finches, once-distinct populations are merging. 
K.
The finches of Santa Cruz demonstrate a subtle process in which human meddling can stop 
evolution In Its tracks, outing the formation of new species. In a time when global biodiversity continues Its 
downhill slide, Darwin's finches have yet another unexpected lesson to teach. 'If we hope to regain some of 
the diversity that's already been lost/ Hendry says, 'we need to protect not just existing creatures, but also the 
processes that drive the origin of new species. 

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