Years ago, Charles Darwin surveyed four islands in the Galapagos archipelago. Through this and several other studies he conducted throughout his life, along with the knowledge of Alfred Russel Wallace, both developed the theory of evolution.
Today we all know this as the correct theory about how mankind and all other living beings on the planet evolved. We know that evolution is a process that all living things go through because through mutations we have differentiations in the same species.
These distinctions allow the living being to adapt or not to the environment in which it lives. Therefore his maxim is: “The strongest survives”, or in other words “The fittest survives the environment”.
But after all, what’s the point of all this history and biology class? What happened is that Darwin and other scientists proved that it is possible for living things to survive in inhospitable environments as long as they can adapt.
And unfortunately that happens in garbage island located in the Pacific Ocean. Many may not be familiar with this island, but it is undeniable that there is an enormous amount of garbage in our oceans. This junk is mostly made up of plastic, rubber, and other materials that take millions of years to break down.
Consequently, the currents of the Pacific Ocean accumulated much of this debris at one point. This is because this point is the intersection or “end of the line” of five different ocean currents. So on this island there is garbage from all over the world.
Photo: Alma Londrina/Reproduction
The “ecosystem” of Big Garbage Island
Logically, due to the “natural” formation of a garbage island, the location is the target of investigation for many researchers. In a recent survey published by the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, scientists discovered that there are species of invertebrate organisms that live, reproduce and compete for territory in this location.
According to the research, some garbage samples were taken from the island that analyzed for the presence of coastal and offshore organisms.
From this it can be concluded that there was an “evolution” of both to adapt to this new “ecosystem”.
According to published research, the 105 plastic items removed from the island contained 484 organisms belonging to 46 different species.
Although this is very interesting from a scientific point of view, it is also extremely dangerous. After all, we have an unnatural environment in which living beings evolve in search of survival.
If the Great Garbage Island problem isn’t solved soon, it’s not surprising that new species of creatures created by contact with pollution will soon be discovered.