Darwin discovered to be right: Eastern Pacific barrier is virtually impassable by coral species
A coral species that is found in abundance from Indonesia eastward to Fiji, Samoa, and the Line Islands rarely crosses the Eastern Pacific Barrier toward the coast of the Americas A coral species that is found in abundance from Indonesia eastward to Fiji, Samoa, and the Line Islands rarely crosses the Eastern Pacific Barrier toward the coast of the Americas, according to a team of researchers led by Iliana Baums, an assistant professor of biology at Penn State University. Darwin hypothesized in 1880 that most species could not disperse across the marine barrier, and Baums's study is the first comprehensive test of that hypothesis using coral. The results of the scientific paper, which will be published in the journal Molecular Ecology, has important implications for climate-change research, species-preservation efforts, and the economic stability of the eastern Pacific region, including the Galapagos, Costa Rica, Panama, and Ecuador.