Papers in the Biological Sciences

 

Title

Celebrating Darwin's Legacy: Evolution in the Galapagos Islands and the Great Plains

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

2-12-2009

Comments

Catalogue for Great Plains Art Museum exhibition, February 12 - March 29, 2009.

Abstract

An exhibition of photographs by Linda R. Brown, Josef Kren, Paul A. Johnsgard, Allison Johnson, and Stephen Johnson; paintings by Allison Johnson; drawings by Paul A. Johnsgard; and related Darwiniana. Sponsored by the Center for Great Plains Studies, James Stubbendieck, director, and the Great Plains Art Museum, Amber Mohr, curator, in honor of the bicentennial of Charles Darwin's birth (1809-2009) and the 150th anniversary of The Origin of Species (1859).

EXHlBlTORS
Linda R. Brown, Lincoln, Nebraska. B.S. (Pharmacy) University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, 1965.
Paul A. Johnsgard, Lincoln, Nebraska. Foundation Professor Emeritus, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. B.S. (Zoology) North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND, 1953; M.S. (Wildlife Management) Washington State University, Pullman, WA, 1955; Ph.D. (Vertebrate Zoology), Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 1959.
Allison Johnson, Scottsbluff, Nebraska. Undergraduate (Biology) St. Olaf College, St. Olaf, MN.
Stephen Johnson, Scottsbluff, Nebraska. B.S. University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 1971; Ph.D. (Anatomy) University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 1976; M.D. University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria, 1980.
Josef Kren, Lincoln, Nebraska. B.S. Jan Evangelista Purkyne University, Czech Republic, 1985; Ph.D. (Vertebrate Zoology) University of Brno, Czech Republic, 1989; Ph.D. (Ornithology) University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, 1996.

EXHIBITORS' STATEMENT
UNDERTAKING THE GALAPAGOS OBSERVATIONS and selecting, assembling, and preparing the associated photographs, drawings, and paintings for our associated exhibit was a collaborative effort equally involving L. Brown, P. Johnsgard, A. Johnson, and J. Kren. It could not have been done without the total effort and support of many others, including Dr. Stephen Johnson, who printed nearly all the photographic images and also loaned many important items of Darwiniana. During June 2005, four of us spent eleven days travelling throughout the Galapagos Archipelago via a commercial yacht. We traveled 640 nautical miles, making landfalls at twelve islands-including all four of those visited by Darwin, sometimes landing on the same beaches he visited-and took sixteen hikes in search of plants and animals. We photographed fifty-four bird species, eleven reptiles, and five native mammals. We also photographed about fifty plant species, including many of those that were first collected by Darwin and subsequently described as new species or genera.
Images were later drawn, painted, or photographed in order to illustrate comparable evolutionary phenomena and processes occurring on the Great Plains and to point out that evolution is a process that can be observed in our own back yards as well as in such exotic locations as the Galapagos Islands.