How Do Species Evolve?
New species arise more easily in isolation. On Ecuador's Galápagos Islands, whose diversity astonished Darwin, that's been true of giant tortoises and his famously varied finches. But for lichens—an association between fungus and algae—evolution doesn't occur easily here. Most of the island's hundreds of species have likely blown in from elsewhere. But biologist Frank Bungartz, working at the Charles Darwin Research Station, has still managed to find at least 30 that are endemic and new to science, including Ramalina darwinia, pictured here in January 2009.
—Photograph by Frank Bungartz/Charles Darwin Foundation/Galapagos
