A brand new island emerging off the coast of Japan offers scientists a rare opportunity to study how life begins to colonize barren land -- helped by rotting bird poo and hatchling vomit.
Researchers say bird waste will be the secret ingredient to kick start Mother Nature's grand experiment on what is a still active volcano that only poked its head above the waves in November 2013.
That speck of land, some 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) south of Tokyo, has grown to engulf its once larger neighbor, Nishinoshima, a part of Japan's Ogasawara island chain known for the wealth and variety of its ecosystem.
The new Nishinoshima, a respectable 2.46 square kilometers (0.95 square miles), the Japan Coast Guard said in February -- roughly the size of 345 football pitches -- is currently almost all bare rock, formed from cooling lava.
But scientists say it will one day be humming with plant -- and possibly animal -- life, as nature moves in to what is being called a "natural laboratory" on one of the latest bits of real estate in the Pacific Ocean.
After the volcanic activity calms down, what will probably happen first will be the arrival of plants brought by ocean currents and attached to birds' feet.
Those seabirds, which could use the remote rock as a temporary resting place, could eventually set up home there.
Their excreta -- along with their dropped feathers, regurgitated bits of food and rotting corpses -- will eventually form a nutrient-rich soil that offers fertile ground for seeds carried by the wind, or brought in the digestive systems of overflying birds.
Scientists have no idea when Nishinoshima will stop spewing lava, but its expansion is being offset by erosion around the edges.
The island is expected to follow a route laid out by Surtsey, an island that emerged from the sea in 1963, around 30 kilometers from the coast of Iceland.
The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage spot is known globally as an outstanding example of a pristine natural laboratory where researchers have been able to trace the evolution of a habitat.
"Since they began studying the island in 1964, scientists have observed the arrival of seeds carried by ocean currents, the appearance of moulds, bacteria and fungi, followed in 1965 by the first vascular plant," UNESCO says on its website.
"By 2004, (vascular plants) numbered 60, together with 75 bryophytes, 71 lichens and 24 fungi. Eighty-nine species of birds have been recorded on Surtsey, 57 of which breed elsewhere in Iceland. The 141 hectare island is also home to 335 species of invertebrates."