Visitors to the Galapagos islands should be made aware that the archipelago is 'unique and at risk', according to research funded by the the UK Natural Environmental Research Council.

'Around 40% of the species on the Galapagos are unique to the islands,' writes David White in NERC's quarterly magazine, Planet Earth.

It is this concentration of rare species coupled with increasing levels of tourism - 100,000 people visit the islands every year - that makes the Galapagos so vulnerable to the demands of an increasing human population, he says.