Vol 3 Land Resource Inventory Report - Department of Environment ...

discovery. Additionally, Barker (2005) also records an additional 11 described species that
are of unconfirmed status as their taxonomy is unresolved.
Of the 245 species known for the Fiji Archipelago 216 are native (indigenous) of which 167
are endemic (known only from Fiji). The fauna is thus characterised by 77% endemism,
confirming the importance of the unique Fijian fauna at a national, regional and global level.
In addition, there are 18 introduced species, comprising a mixture of tropical tramp species
and a few introductions from further afield.
How many of Fiji‘s native species are threatened is presently unknown however, what is
certain is that without adequate information to enable species identification and limited
knowledge on distributions and life history characteristics it is very hard to make informed
decisions on conservation priorities. And without any conservation measures at all in place
the words of the snail specialist Alan Solem in 1964 given below will undoubtedly soon be
true.
―The famed endemic land snails of the Pacific islands are restricted to the
rapidly shrinking patches of native forest. In all too short a time the land
snail fauna of the Pacific islands will consist solely of a homogeneous
blend of the introduced forms …. It is with a real sense of sadness that I
have attempted to chronicle for the terrestrial malacologist of 2020 the
places where the living land snails of Polynesia and Micronesia
originated!‖ Solem (1964).
The majority of the Fiji Island native and endemic land snail fauna appears to be associated
with native forest habitat (Table 2). However thirty-five members of three different families
(Assimineidae, Ellobiidae and Truncatellidae) are associated with supralittoral or high
intertidal habitats. According to Barker (2005) thirty-one of these 35 ―high intertidal‖ species
are native and this includes six endemic species (Table 3). Four additional species of ―high
intertidal‖ land snail are described but of unconfirmed taxonomic status.
Away from the ocean Fiji‘s land snail fauna also differs in its habitat location, for example,
30 species (17% of snail species for which data is available) are generally found to be
arboreal (in vegetation above ground level) while 137 species are found at ground level
(terrestrial) in leaf litter or under rotting wood. Only 5% of land snail species for which data
is available commonly exhibit both arboreal and terrestrial activity (Table 4).
Based on the unpublished report of Barker (2005) several locations (e.g., isolated islands in
the Lau Group; Rotuma) have assemblages of native species that should be conserved. The
most obvious priority is the very isolated island of Rotuma which according to Barker (2005)
is known for 6 endemic species from 5 different families, including a member of the Pacific
Island flagship partulid tree snails - a group designated as a high conservation priority for the
Pacific Island region by the IUCN (Pippard, IUCN-Oceania, pers. comm.). The current status
of the Rotuman land snail fauna is unknown as there have been no surveys for a century.
Land snail surveys of Rotuma are a high conservation priority not only because of the
island‘s highly significant land snail records but because of the substantially increased
extinction-risk levels that will result from the island‘s imminent conversion to a registered
port of entry for the Fijian Islands. Potential new species introductions will without doubt be
associated with the resulting trade developments.
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