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Hills in Borneo throws light on evolution
12/Sep/2006: Limestone hills in the Kinabatangan valley in Malaysian Borneo, home to lowland tropical rainforests and the indigenous Proboscis monkey of Borneo, serve as a natural laboratory of evolution, according to an international team of scientists, led by Dr. Menno Schilthuzien from the Malaysian university, Univeristi Malaysia Sabah (UMS), located in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah.
While studying the land snail species that inhabit these limestone hills, the team discovered that the limestone hills in the Kinabatangan valley were indeed remnants of ancient coral reefs formed when this part of the Borneo was under the sea. The limestone rocks were made of Calcium Carbonate, a compound that forms the snail shells, and the team found that this is the reason why, this area is home to many unique land snail species.
The findings of this team were published in the September issue of the science journal ‘Evolution’. Different hills in the region is home to different types of land sails of Borneo (Opisthostoma) and a few types actually belonged to a different species (Opisthostoma mirabile), an endangered species of land snails that is found only in the Gomantong hills in the Malaysian state of Sabah.
When the team analyzed the DNA’s of the snails, they found that the shell shape in these snails were not determined only by their genes but were also based on the environment they are living in. The shells were adaptations to different environments within these limestone hills. The shell shape of these snails evolved differently in different environments (even though all snails belonged to the same species) to defend against local predator behavior.
During their study the team observed that predators in different hills used different techniques to kill and eat the land snails, forcing the snails to adapt different defense mechanisms (shell shape) in different environments. The limestone hills of Kinabatangan have provided valuable insights to the scientists on ‘evolution’ based on adaptation to environment.
Kesavan Siva
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