Ecological Studies, Vol. 132

Ecological Studies, Vol. 132 Analysis and Synthesis Edited by M.M. Caldwell, Logan, USA G. Heldmaier, Marburg, Germany O.L. Lange, Wiirzburg, Germany H.A. Mooney, Stanford, USA E.-D. Schulze, Bayreuth, Germany U. Sommer, Kiel, Germany Ecologica! Studies Volumes published since 1992 are listed at the end of this book. Springer Science+ Business Media, LLC Dieter Mueller-Dombois F. Raymond Fosberg (deceased) Vegetation of the Tropical Pacific Islands With 521 illustrations, 436 in color ' Springer Dieter Mueller-Dombois F. Raymond Fosberg (deceased) Professor Emeritus Botanist Emeritus DepruUnentofBomny Museum of Natural History University of Hawai'i at Miinoa Smithsonian Institution Honolulu, Hawai'i 96822-2279 Washington, DC USA USA Cover illustration: A map showing the Pacific tropical island area covered in the text See Figure 1.1. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mueller-Dombois, Dieter, 1925- Vegetation of the tropical Pacific is1ands 1 Dieter Mueller Dombois, F. Raymond Fosberg. p. cm.--(Ecological studies ; 132) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 978-0-387-98313-4 1. Plant ecology--Oceania. 2. Plant communities--Oceania. 3. Phytogeography-Oceania. 1. Fosberg, F. Raymond (Francis Raymond), 1908-1993. Il. Title. m. Series: Ecologica! studies; V. 132. QK471.M84 1998 581.995-dc21 97-24026 ISBN 978-0-387-98313-4 ISBN 978-1-4419-8686-3 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-8686-3 © 1998 Springer Science+Business Media New York Original1y published by Springer-Verlag New York, Inc. in 1998 All rights reserved. This work may not be trans1ated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use of general descriptive names, trade names, trademarks, etc., in this publication, even if the former are not especially identified, is not to be taken as a sign that such names, as understood by the Trade Marks and Merchandise Marks Act, may accordingly be used freely by anyone. Production coordinated by University Graphics Production Services and managed by Natalie John son; manufacturing supervised by Rhea Talbert. Typeset by Matrix Publishing Services, York, PA. 987654321 ISSN 0070-8356 In Memoriam of F. Raymond Fosberg (1908-1993) who died during the book-writing effort A special commemorative issue was published in the Atoll Research Bulletin no's 390-396 of February 1994 issued by the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., U.S.A. With the expressed wishes of my co-author, F. Raymond Fosberg, prior to his death in 1993 This book is dedicated to ANNETTE MUELLER-DOMBOIS for her untiring assistance in the technical aspects of preparing this book for publication, and also for her considerable input through critical reading of the manuscript and, last not least, for her taking care of our everyday needs whenever we were together during writing sessions. D.M-D. Preface This book is the result of a commitment made to Professor Heinrich Walter (University of Stuttgart-Hohenheim, Germany) in 1978 by Dr. F. Ray Fosberg and myself. Heinrich Walter initiated a book series entitled Vegetationsmono graphien der einzelnen Grossriiume (Vegetation Monographs of the Major World Regions). Upon H. Walter's death in 1989, Professor Siegmar-W. Breckle (Uni versity of Bielefeld) continued as editor of this monograph series. Professor Wal ter's concept included nine world regions: Vol. I, North and Central America; Vol. II, South America; Vol. III, Africa; Vol. IV, Australia; Vol. V, Tropical Asia; Vol. VI, East Asia; Vol. VII, Eastern Europe with North and Central Asia; Vol. VIII, Europe exclusive of Eastern Europe; and Vol. IX, the Pacific Islands. Vols. I, II, III, IV, and VII have since been published by Fischer Verlag, Stuttgart. Vol. VIII will be published concurrently as the last volume (in German) through Fischer Verlag. Vol. IX, this volume, is the second book in English (after Vol. IV) and the first to be published by Springer-Verlag. Vol. VI is currently in prepa ration, and Vol. V is still in the planning stage. In 1979 Dr. Fosberg and I began to make tentative outlines for this book. His Pacific island work began in 1935, when he received his M.Sc. degree in botany from the University of Hawaii, based on work on the genus Gouldia (Rubiaceae ). His Ph.D. degree was obtained in 1939 from the University of Pennsylvania for a monographic revision of the Polynesian species of Hedyotis (Rubiaceae). Dur ing WWII Dr. Fosberg was sent to Colombia to search for stands of Cinchona (Rubiaceae) as a source of quinine and related antimalarial alkaloids. In 1946 he participated as a botanist in a six-month "Economic Survey of Micronesia." This work initiated a continuing study of the flora and vegetation of the Pacific is lands, which placed Ray Fosberg (FRF) at the focal point in studies of island ecosystems and conservation. In addition to Micronesia, FRF participated in sev eral expeditions to Polynesia and kept a lifelong interest in Pacific island vege tation. In the course of his work, he published numerous papers, which are listed in a commemorative volume of the Atoll Research Bulletin (February 1994). With his longtime scientific associate, Dr. Marie-Helene Sachet, he assembled two big volumes of Island Bibliographies (Sachet and Fosberg 1955, 1971). Prof. H. Walter's concept for the Pacific vegetation book included Melanesia and New Zealand. It soon became apparent that New Zealand could not be treated in the same volume. However, Melanesia outside New Guinea was considered treatable in the context of one volume together with Micronesia, Polynesia, and the eastern Pacific islands. My task became to focus on Melanesia and the sub tropical islands in the New Zealand region. During my sabbatical year in 1981, vii viii Preface my wife, Annette Mueller-Dombois, and I began our field research in Fiji, where we stayed seven weeks. We traveled to New Caledonia, where we participated in field excursions arranged by ORSTOM for participants at the International Botanical Congress in Sydney. We thereafter spent some time in Papua New Guinea at the Wau Ecology Station and traveled from there through the Melane sian Islands with two- to three-week stops in New Britain, Bougainville, the Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu. In 1988 I had a second opportunity to spend some time in Fiji and Vanuatu, and in 1992 I visited Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands. Other islands visited on research trips were Guam and the Galapagos. The objectives were in each case to meet with local experts and, wherever pos sible, to arrange field excursions with them, and assemble literature and reports, many of which were only locally available. Numerous people helped in various ways, and they are mentioned in a separate acknowledgment. When we fmally began to write this book in 1986, the enormity of the task started to sink in. Our outline changed several times. The most difficult under taking was to address this book at an appropriate level of generalization, that is, not to treat the vegetation too superficially yet not to get bogged down in too much detail. Moreover, we had to maintain the focus strictly on vegetation. An other real problem was the unevenness of available information, which we tried to balance as much as possible. Still, it shows in our treatment, in which the ar eas of greatest familiarity, Micronesia (FRF) and the Hawaiian Islands (DMD), received the most pages. The book-writing process was very staggered in the beginning, because both FRF and I had many other commitments. From 1986 to 1990, we could handle the book writing only as a low-priority task. FRF was able to write his book chapters only whenever he had a chance to come to Hawai'i from Washington, D.C., for two to three weeks at a time to stay in our house. For this we had to seek travel funds, which luckily became available to FRF at reasonably frequent intervals through his service tasks with the East-West Center, the National Trop ical Botanic Garden, and the Bishop Museum and through work in botanical and ecological consultancy and biological conservation issues. In 1990 I retired from teaching to devote more time to the book-writing job. At the same time, I received an NSF Award for cooperative research in "Ecosys tem Dynamics in Hawai'i" with Peter Vitousek, who was the PI for the Stanford segment of the NSF Award. This replaced my former teaching obligations for the next seven years. It forced the book-writing project into a second-level pri ority but made it more challenging. FRF and I kept coming together about four times a year until February 1993, when his prostate cancer began to increase in severity. At that time he had his manuscripts on Micronesia and Polynesia quite well completed in first-draft form. He died that same year at his home in Falls Church, Virginia, in September. Be fore his death he suggested that we dedicate this book to my wife, Annette, who took care of both of us whenever we came together for book-writing sessions at our home in Hawai'i. She not only provided for our everyday needs, she also did Preface 1x all the word processing of our handwritten manuscripts and learned to cope with the continuously changing computer technology in software as well as in hard ware. Without her complete devotion to our writing task, this book would never have seen the light of day.

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