No other island in the world has such a bizarre history as Anak Krakatau’s. It appeared out of the sea 80 years ago, became home to dozens of bird and plant species, and then disappeared just as quickly. More volcanic eruptions followed as it resurfaced and grew to its current height of 1,300 feet. Then the explosions stopped.
For the next half century, Anak Krakatau has served as the ideal laboratory for observing how life begins, endures, and sometimes perishes in an island ecosystem. In fact, much of what we know about island colonization, biogeography, and ecology comes from the decades of research on Anak Krakatau, starting with Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson’s classic treatise The Theory of Island Biogeography (1967) to Oxford ecologist Robert Whittaker’s Island Biogeography (2007).
Whittaker’s research in the last ten years, for instance, has redefined the standard theories on how ecosystems evolve. Based on the interactions of the island’s 400 plant, 54 butterfly, 30 bird, 18 land mollusk, 17 bat, and 9 reptile species, he formulated a grand “disturbed island theory,” which argues that ecosystems do not ever reach some sort of ecological equilibrium. Other researchers have recently found that frugivore bats, buried seed banks, and even periodic extinctions are much more important in island colonization than previously thought. Data from Anak Krakatau also disproved the “stepping-stone” theory that claims animals colonize islands one by one in a hopscotch fashion (such as in the South Pacific).
Last November, Anak Krakatau came back to life, with spectacular eruptions and dangerous lava flows that threatened the growing number of tourists who visit each year. One researcher, Richard Field of University of
Nottingham , told me a “catastrophic eruption” that wipes out all life on the island-or worse, the island itself-is inevitable. If the volcanic eruptions do not destroy Anak Krakatau, a plan by the Indonesian government to mine the island for its valuable soil and sand just might.
Several teams are currently scrambling to conduct as much research on this “natural laboratory” as possible before it disappears again. One team, led by botanist Tukirin Partomihardjo, is returning in March. He’s known as the “King of Krakatau” because of his 25 years of research on the island, beginning with his PhD thesis. Whittaker and Field assure me he knows the place better than anybody else, and that he has a “huge personality” (the tension here between his Western training and Indonesian superstitions about volcanoes may be interesting to explore).
