ISSN 1031-8062 ISBN 0 7305 5592 5 The Biology and Geology of Tuvalu: an Annotated Bibliography K. A. Rodgers and Carol' Cant.-11 Technical Reports of the Australian Museu~ Number-t TECHNICAL REPORTS OF THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM Director: Technical Reports of the Australian Museum is D.J.G . Griffin a series of occasional papers which publishes Editor: bibliographies, catalogues, surveys, and data bases in J.K. Lowry the fields of anthropology, geology and zoology. The journal is an adjunct to Records of the Australian Assistant Editor: J.E. Hanley Museum and the Supplement series which publish original research in natural history. It is designed for Associate Editors: the quick dissemination of information at a moderate Anthropology: cost. The information is relevant to Australia, the R.J. Lampert South-west Pacific and the Indian Ocean area. Invertebrates: Submitted manuscripts are reviewed by external W.B. Rudman referees. A reasonable number of copies are distributed to scholarly institutions in Australia and Geology: around the world. F.L. Sutherland Submitted manuscripts should be addressed to the Vertebrates: Editor, Australian Museum, P.O. Box A285, Sydney A.E . Greer South, N.S.W. 2000, Australia. Manuscripts should preferably be on 51;4 inch diskettes in DOS format and ©Copyright Australian Museum, 1988 should include an original and two copies. No part of this publication may be reproduced without permission of the Editor. Technical Reports are not available through subscription. New issues will be announced in the Produced by the Australian Museum Records. Orders should be addressed to the Assistant 15 September 1988 Editor (Community Relations), Australian Museum, $16.00 bought at the Australian Museum P.O. Box A285, Sydney South, N.S.W. 2000, $18.50 posted within Australia or New Zealand Australia. $22.00 posted airmail to other countries Technical Reports of the Australian Museum (1988) No.1 ISSN 1031-8062 The Biology and Geology of Tuvalu: an Annotated Bibliography K.A. RODGERS! and CAROL CANTRELL2 !University of Auckland, Private Bag, Auckland, New Zealand 2Australian Museum, p.a. Box A285 Sydney South, NSW 2000, Australia ABSTRACT. Over one thousand references of published monographs, papers, letters, notes and reports concerned with the geology and biology of the nine islands of Tuvalu, the former Ellice Islands, are indexed and annotated. Excluded are meteorological, ethnological, human geographical, historical, administrative and sanitary publications. Medical references are included where these impinge on the zoological or botanical. Fifty papers come from Soviet sources and include results of recent expeditions from that nation in the archipelago. RODGERS, KA. & CAROL CANTRELL, 1988. The biology and geology of Tuvalu: an annotated bibliography. Technical Reports of the Australian Museum No.l: 1-103. Introduction The central Pacific nation of Tuvalu (Ellice Islands) ments, reefs, submarine topography, stratigraphy and consists of nine small islands and atolls scattered along deep structure and composition were described in an approximate north-north-west to south-south-east some detail following three coral reef boring expedi­ bearing between SO and Imlz°S latitude and 176° and tions mounted by the Royal Society in 1896, 1897 and 179Y2°E longitude. Apart from the similar island chain 1898, and a fourth visit by Professor Agassiz of Har­ of Kiribati to the north and east, the nearest land is vard in 1899. These descriptions, along with reports on Rotumah, 400 km to the south-west, with the main is­ collections of the flora and fauna, served to make the lands of Fiji a further 200 km south. The Phoenix and natural history of this atoll the best documented of any Tokelau groups lie about 700 km east while the Santa in the Pacific and Indian Oceans at the turn of the Cruz Islands are the first landfall 1500 km west As a century (Rodgers, 1985). consequence of this isolation, the 36 square km area of Little, however, was known of the geology and the archipelago provides the sole land area due south biology of the other eight islands. Agassiz had made a of the equator and west of the 1800 meridian in an ex­ survey of some of their reefs and collected a few panse of 2,000,000 square km of the central Pacific. specimens. Other information of scientific value, as From north to south the nine islands are Nanumea, Ni­ wen as a few collections which existed in herbaria and utao, Nanumaga, Nui, Vaitupu, Nuk~fetau, Funafuti, museums (e.g. MueUer, 1876; Butler, 1878; Sharpe, Nukulaelae, Niulakita (Fig.l). 1878) had come largely from missionary sources. Specimens of the animal and plant life of the islands Moreover, these collections were not systematic nor start to appear in the collections and herbaria of West­ comprehensive. Neither were the majority of those ern Europe from about the mid nineteenth century on. from Funafuti. Few had been assembled by a specialist The geology of Funafuti, including its lagoonal sedi- in a particular field while some of the identifications 2 Technical Reports of the Australian Museum 1 ~,Nanumea ... (Nanomea, St. Augustine, Taswell's I., TasweI) 6 0 S '" Niutao ~ (?Gran Cocal, Lynx, Smut Face I., Speiden, Loper's I.) Nanumaga I (Nanumanga, Monomanga, Nonomana, Nanomana, ? Gran Cocal, Sherson's, Hudson I. ) Nui fl (Neder landische Eiland, Vaitupu ~ Netherland I., Eeg I., Isla de Jesus, (Vaitoupou, Paitupu, Tracy I., Tracey's I., Archilles I.) Chromtchenko ) 1Ir---+-----------t--1j Nukufetau 8° (Noukoufetau, De Peyster's GI''(mp.) :")-.::,~ f I. ~.1 L'una utI (Founafouti, Ellice's Group) Nukulaelae .i.) (Nukulailai, Noukoulailai, Mitchell's Group, Nicholas, Plasquet) 10° KILOMETRES 50 0 50 100 150 r ,...,.-.; 20 0 20 40 60 80 Niulakita .. NAUTICAL MILES (Niurakita, La Solitaria, Sophia I., Rocky I., Independence I.) 176EO 178° E 180 0 W Fig.1. Sketch map of Tuvalu archipelago showing some alternative spellings and names of the islands which occur in the literature. than a little flawed (e.g. see criticisms of North, 1898; Funafuti and Nukufetau in 1951 and established for the Pocock, 1898; Bogert, 1937; Belkin, 1962; Pont, 1968). first time the thickness of the carbonates through which Few of these omissions were to be made good in the the Royal Society had hoped to drill at Funafuti as 550- years succeeding Agassiz' visit. Following the intense 760 m (Gaskell & Swallow, 1952,1953). A collection of activity of the last four years of the nineteenth century, algae made by the Challenger from the Funafuti lagoon, much of the world's scientific community lost interest was described by Chapman (1955) and sight records by in this remote and tiny group and little in the way of the officers of birds observed in the group were new field data or specimens became available to huild documented by MacDonald & Crawford (1954). on what had gone before. There were exceptions: The most diversified expedition to call in the twenti­ Dr Sixten Bock from Sweden visited in mid 1917. He eth century was made by the Soviet research vessel made small collections of a number of marine inverte­ Dmitry Mendeleev in 1971 and 1973. Geological, brate groups from Nanumaga, Nui, Vaitupu, Nukulae­ oceanographic, biological, meteorological and anthro­ lae, Nukufetau, Niutao and Nanumea, some of which pological field studies were undertaken on various is­ have since been described (e.g. Odhner, 1925; Schel­ lands over several weeks, as well as in the surrounding lenberg, 1938; Adam, 1945; ef. Rodgers & Olerod, waters. Regrettably, while considerable new data were 1988). obtained, few publications concerned specifically with HMS Challenger completed a seismic survey of both Tuvalu/Ellice biology and geology have appeared (e.g. Tuvalu, bibliography 3 Vilenkin, 1977; Kalineko & Medvedev, 1980). Most mimeographed reports from various British and Tuval­ published data have been presented as part of general uan governmental departments. As a result, the pelagic syntheses of various aspects of natural science in the fishes and their baits have joined the mosquitoes as a western Pacific (e.g. Petrov, 1980). The 1973 visit pro­ well studied group (e.g. Klawe, 1978; Crossland, 1979; duced one of the first detailed accounts of the conse­ Zann, 1980; Taumaia & Gentle, 1982; Ellway et al., quences of Hurricane Bebe (Askenov, 1975). 1983). For the first time, the botany of one of the is­ The sole area where numerous, continuing, in-depth lands, Nui, has been documented (W oodroffe, 1985, studies were conducted throughout the entire group 1986), while a smaller survey of that of Vaitupu has was that of filaria! infections and their arthropod vec­ been informally published (Woodroffe, 1(81). Some of tors, the disease being a major threat not only to the the omissions of 1899 are being made good. communities' health but also the World War 11 effort. However, one consequence of the nature and history As a result, a wealth of research papers appeared from of scientific research in Tuvalu is that the literature is both British and American workers (e.g. Laird, 1956; widely scattered both historically and geographically. Iyengar, 1959, 1960; Zahar et al., 1980). While this is scarcely unique to either Tuvalu or its sci­ These contributions apart, the total knowledge of the ence, there is nevertheless a seeming predilection on geology and of the majority of animal and plant groups the part of some researchers in the archipelago to re­ of the archipelago as at 1970, was essentially that of discover facts and facets of both the geology and biol­ 1899. This was in sharp contrast to the situation for ogy and to ignore that which has gone before. other, comparable island groups. While topographic Rodgers (1985) drew attention to Chapman's (1955, maps and charts had improved, the geology of Funafuti p.334) statement with which he prefixed his report on and the significance of the Royal Society's corings con­ the Challenger's 1951 algal collections: "No algal collec­ tinued to be debated inconclusively, as the database, tions appear to have been made on previous visits, not with the exception of the Challenger results, was still even during the celebrated visit to put a bore down that of the nineteenth century (e.g.