Isolated: A Story of Survival

Here we will present the concept of isolation and will discuss its different origins. This first episode will be an introduction to the rest of the series. It will give a general vision of the subjects that will later be developed in detail in the following episodes. Here we will discuss adaptation, geological cataclysms, massive extinctions, and ecological frailties.

This episode is dedicated to colonization and life on volcanic islands, and life that has developed because of reef barriers. A marine iguana and a giant turtle of the Galapagos Islands, a Komodo dragon, clown fish, a young orangutan, and a family of Papues will be the main protagonists.

On the opposite extremes of the globe, dotting the northern and southern hemispheres, a great many islands are home to the protagonists of this episode. Adapted like no others to the rigors of the climate, a king penguin, an albatross, a grizzly bear, a group of walruses, a baby elephant seal, and a giant petrel will be our guides and they will teach us how they are able to survive.

Isolation because of continental drift... Some portions of the Earth that are the size of small continents are breaking away from the continental masses and creating different worlds of amazing proportions. The inhabitants of these colossal islands, many of them relics of past geographical eras, will the be protagonists of this episode.

On certain occasions, unique geographical factors, catastrophes, or mainly the hand of man have created inland islands in the interior of the continents: places isolated from the rest due to a loss of continuity in a specific ecosystem. These internal islands, places of forced confinement for species, will be the focus of this fifth episode.

As in all societies on Earth, globalization is also reaching the islands. New species are gaining access to these ecologically fragile paradises. Man advances. He is unstoppable and he is moving pieces of nature that need thousands of years to adapt. This is the end of isolation for places with an independent evolutionary path.