Pushing your luck

Natural rafting might be a plausible solution to explain the arrival on islands of several plants, invertebrates, and small poikilotherm animals that have low metabolic rates, low food requirements, and low water flux rates, and, therefore, a greater ability to withstand oceanic distances. The author minimizes many problems arising from crossing an ocean: the detrimental effects of exposure to high concentrations of salt, the extreme changes in temperature and humidity, among others.