After trudging upslope for weeks, a giant tortoise slows its hundreds of cumbersome kilograms to a stop. Dense woods defended by barbed wire–like blackberry bushes block its path. After a brief foray into the painful prickles, the tortoise backs out and plods on, searching for a way out of the woods.
These blackberry-lined forests of Spanish cedar trees (Cedrela odorata) are invasive in the tortoise’s island home in the Galápagos. If they can, these titanic turtles stay clear of the new, troublesome habitats on their seasonal uphill treks to find food, researchers report in the February Ecology and Evolution. If the Cedrela forests one day manage to block the shelled reptile’s migration altogether, the consequences for the tortoises and the surrounding island ecosystem could be dire, researchers say.
Read the full article here