Having lived on Kwajalein for some time and having family there
during typhoon and other storms. I survived the Good Friday
Earthquake and Pacific tidal wave.  It reached the island with
a height of 6'.

I fell the Hawaii islands are old.  The big one is young.  The ones
far to the North west - under water are the oldest and have melted
into the sea.  The whole set is sweeping towards the north west and
to the south east of the big island a new island begins.

One of my favorite pictures I took was after a Typhoon hit and
brought us a massive tree.  Trees are known to take worms within
as they float. - How about eggs.  Or snails.

So transportation upon ocean currents is world wide and North-South
Pacific in specific.  e.g. follow the shoes as they float around
after a transport spill.
(Yea - I have a number of those from Kwaj)
Martin

Doug Stemke wrote:
> Hello All.
>
>     I realize by its very nature the isolation of the Hawaiian island
> chain is likely to have less genetic diversity than organism populations
> closer to the middle of population centers (i.e. the western Pacific for
> many mollusks). Also, because the islands are 'fairly young' potentially
> more of the populations there resulted from founders effect and have
> inherently less genetic diversity.  What I'm interested in speculating
> upon is why, specifically it seems to me, the Cypraea have so many species
> in Hawaii that are huge (C. tigris, C. vitellus, C. maculifera for
> example) and most other mollusks in Hawaii that have large Indo-Pacific
> ranges are not similarly affected by this selection process.  Is it the
> niches that are available (i.e. large volcanic boulders), the nature of
> the predation, or some other factor?  Perhaps something odd like the
> veliger stage of a larger Cypraea stays platonic longer and thus they had
> a better chance to populate this remote island chain?
>
>     Just wondering.  Thanks.
>
>
> Doug
>
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--
Martin H. Eastburn
@ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net
TSRA, Life; NRA LOH & Patron Member, Golden Eagle, Patriot's Medal.
NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder
IHMSA and NRA Metallic Silhouette maker & member.
http://lufkinced.com/

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