Scientists in Ecuador are warning that a stronger-than-normal El Nino could cut the Galapagos Islands' vertebrate population by at least 20% this year and push rare plants toward extinction.
The archipelago of more than 230 islands, only four of them inhabited, lies about 1,000 kilometers off Ecuador's coast in the Pacific. El Nino raises sea temperatures and brings heavy rain to the equatorial Pacific.
Sea temperatures about 4F above normal
The latest projection from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration puts sea surface temperatures about 2.2 degrees Celsius, or 4 degrees Fahrenheit, above normal. That is past the 2C threshold that defines a very strong event.
Franklin Ormaza, a researcher at the Higher Polytechnic School of the Coast, said the effects on the islands would be severe. Warmer water causes plankton, algae and small fish, the food base for larger marine animals, to all but disappear.
Wildlife and forests at risk
Washington Tapia of the conservation group Biodiversa Ecuador said the species most at risk include Galapagos penguins, blue-footed boobies, petrels, flightless cormorants, albatrosses and sea lions, along with coral colonies and tuna fishing.
Gustavo Jimenez of the Charles Darwin Foundation said animal colonies stop reproducing when food runs short, then spread out in search of food and starve along the way. After the 1998 El Nino, one of the most destructive cycles on record, only about 400 of the islands' 1,300 penguins remained.
On land, the last three Scalesia forests could disappear, and Opuntia cacti along the shore are also threatened, said scientist Heinke Jager. Heavy rain favors fast-growing invasive plants such as blackberry, which crowd out native species.
Ecuador's government, foundations and non-governmental organizations have started a program to clear invasive plants, collect seeds and build nurseries for threatened species. The islands were declared a Natural World Heritage Site in 1978 and hold one of the highest concentrations of species found nowhere else on Earth.
El Nino strength is measured by comparing water temperatures in the equatorial Pacific with the long-term average. This cycle is expected to rank among the strongest in recent decades, and its effects are already visible across the wider region, where Pacific storms have battered Hawaii.