Aldabra tortoise/invasive tortoises

[bikerchicspain]

Aldabra tortoise


Thought i would share this with you especially you Aldabraman!!!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...ely-rescue-tropical-islands-ebony-forest.html

 

[Skyler Nell]

RE: Aldabra tortoise

Awesome!!

 

[dmarcus]

RE: Aldabra tortoise

Another reason why tortoises are so awesome...

 

[Baoh]

RE: Aldabra tortoise

Wonderful story.

 

[CtTortoiseMom]

RE: Aldabra tortoise

Great story and it looks like the Aldabra in the photo's is sweet and curious!

 

[ALDABRAMAN]

RE: Aldabra tortoise

Thank you, that is a great thing.

 

[Jacob]

RE: Aldabra tortoise

Awesome!

 

[Mao Senpai]

RE: Aldabra tortoise

That... is.... awesome!

 

[bikerchicspain]

RE: Aldabra tortoise

I thought it is a fantastic way of preserving this beautiful giant and replenish lost woodland, where so many animals would not exist if not for the trees.

Maybe they should think about doing something similar in the rain forests where the orangutans are loosing their home..

 

[pdrobber]

RE: Aldabra tortoise

good job torts!

 

[tortoises101]

RE: Aldabra tortoise

I've never seen anything like it.

 

[DocNezzy]

RE: Aldabra tortoise

Makes you wonder why this wasn't tried before and in other places.

 

[TLL]

Alien Giant Tortoise Helps Restore Ecosystem

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20110430/sc_livescience/aliengianttortoisehelpsrestoreecosystem

Just thought this was cool and decided to share
tortoises are amazing creatures !

 

[Tom]

RE: Alien Giant Tortoise Helps Restore Ecosystem

Very interesting. A good read.

 

[dmmj]

RE: Alien Giant Tortoise Helps Restore Ecosystem

Nice story but I would say this s the exception to the rule when a new animal is introduced into a foreign ecosystem.

 

[allegraf]

feel good story about invasive torts

This doesn't mean to release your torts into the wild! This was a nice article to wake up to on a beautiful sunday morning.


Alien Giant Tortoise Helps Restore Ecosystem
LiveScience.com


LiveScience.com livescience.com – Sat Apr 30, 8:30 am ET

Rather than wreaking havoc on a tiny island in the Indian Ocean -- as alien species can sometimes do -- a giant tortoise appears to be helping to restore the native ecosystem.

Wildlife scientists introduced Aldabra giant tortoises -- which can reach up to 661 pounds (300 kilograms) -- to an island, called Ile aux Aigrettes, off the coast of the island nation of Mauritius. By 2009, 19 adult giant tortoises called the island home. The tortoises were to replace the role of their extinct kin. [Extinct Giant Tortoises Could Be Revived]

Before humans first arrived on Ile aux Aigrettes, various giant tortoises lived there, as did giant skinks -- a type of lizard -- and, most likely, flightless dodo birds. The disappearance of these animals affected other things living on the island, in particular the native ebony trees, which have been devastated by people hunting for firewood.

The giant tortoises and the skinks ate the fruit of these trees, spreading the seeds. Without these fruit-eaters around, the trees could no longer disperse; young trees only grew directly below the adults.

Worldwide, invasive species are considered one of the greatest threats to biodiversity, so, the idea of replacing an extinct creature with a foreign one is controversial. It has been done elsewhere with the new species often closely related to the one being replaced.

For example, the North American peregrine falcon was re-established from seven subspecies from four continents, and yellow crowned night herons have been introduced to Bermuda to replace extinct herons and to control pesky land crabs. At the most extreme end of the spectrum, conservation scientist Josh Donlan has suggested that the Pleistocene ecosystems of North America be reconstituted with large African mammals -- horses, camels, tortoises, lions, elephants and cheetahs -- thus protecting these species from the threats they face in their natural range.

Replacing extinct giant tortoises with another giant tortoise on an uninhabited island is a much simpler prospect, for a number of reasons, according to Christine Griffiths, a research associate at the University of Bristol and the lead author of a study on the tortoise experiment, done in collaboration with the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation.

Isolated islands often lack predators, meaning a shorter food chain to consider, and the giant tortoises are easy to find and remove if they were to become a problem, Griffiths said.

Initially, researchers were concerned that the new arrivals might eat a great deal of the native plants. In 2000, the first four Aladabra tortoises arrived, and later several others followed. They were kept in pens where surveys indicated that there were no significant problem with native plants, and, in late 2005, 11 were allowed to roam free.

Now, few ripe fruits remain under the ebony trees, and dense patches of seedlings have appeared in the areas most heavily used by the tortoises. Griffiths and other researchers found that seeds that had passed through a tortoise’s gut germinated better than other seeds. And, it turns out, the tortoises eat a lot of the non-native plants.

While the re-introduction appears successful so far, it remains to be seen if the tortoise-dispersed ebony seedlings will develop into adult trees that reproduce, write Griffiths and her colleagues in a recent issue of the journal Current Biology. A similar project is under way on Mauritius’ Round Island.

You can follow LiveScience writer Wynne Parry on Twitter @Wynne_Parry. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20110430/sc_livescience/aliengianttortoisehelpsrestoreecosystem

 

[Laura]

RE: feel good story about invasive torts

love it

 

[Terry Allan Hall]

Cool story!

 

[Madkins007]

It is great to see a well-thought out plan like this taking place. There are certainly things that can go wrong- we've seen that over and over again with re-introductions and using 'natural solutions' involving non-native species. However, this plan seems much more thought through.

 

[tortoises101]

Regarding the thoughts of introducing African land mammals like horses, camels, lions, cheetahs, elephants, etc to North Africa, what if another evolution is going to take place? I guess I'm sidetracking here; just something I thought about.