Sudest Island Research Articles

An assessment of the Tagula Honeyeater Microptilotis vicina, a Data Deficient bird species in a Melanesian endemic hotspot

SummaryWe conducted research into the ‘Data Deficient’ and endemic Tagula Honeyeater Microptilotis vicina of the Louisiade Archipelago, Papua New Guinea. This species was only observed on Sudest and Junet Islands. Islands were visited between October and January in the years from 2012–2014 and in 2016. We conducted the first assessment of spatial and habitat use by this species using radio-tracking in 2016. These findings were also used to inform estimates using traditional population density methods. CTMM package in R was used for home-range estimation for the tracked honeyeaters. Our results supported that members of this species display territoriality during the breeding season, occupying a mean of 2.0 ± 0.6 (SE) ha on Junet Island (n = 5). Whether individuals defended defined territories at other times of the year was not known but re-sightings of marked birds confirmed them to be locally resident. Population estimates ranged between 53,000 and 85,000 individuals. However, more conservative estimates nearing 50,000 individuals were considered prudent given lower population densities observed on parts of the larger Sudest Island (0.64/ha). This species utilised the canopy and understorey layers in a range of habitats from mangroves at sea-level, gardens and regrowth of various ages to cloud forest on the highest point of Sudest Island (∼800 m asl). Dietary observations support that like many closely related species, Tagula Honeyeaters have a broad diet of mostly insects supplemented with nectar and fruit. Observations indicated that this species had life history attributes toward the slower end of the spectrum but similar to other congeners. Vocalisations were more diverse in both structure and complexity than those of suspected close relatives the Mimic Microptilotis analogus and Graceful Microptilotis gracilis Honeyeaters. Morphological measures were similarly different, supporting species level recognition.

Subsistence lifestyles and insular forest loss in the Louisiade Archipelago of Papua New Guinea: an endemic hotspot

Insular areas of the south-west Pacific support high levels of global biodiversity and are undergoing rapid change. The Louisiade Archipelago of Papua New Guinea is a poorly known location with high levels of endemism. The largest island, Sudest Island, supports single-island endemic species and has the largest tract of forest remaining in this island group. The islands still support traditional subsistence lifestyles. This study investigated the patterns of forest loss since 1974 and predicted future forest loss to identify areas of conservation concern. We collected village population census data to assess population growth from 1979–2011. Historical vegetation mapping from 1974 was compared with Global Forest Change data from 2000–14. The geospatial drivers of forest loss were investigated using a generalised linear mixed model. Projected forest cover loss patterns in the islands were modelled in GEOMOD to the year 2030. Resident populations grew rapidly (6.0% per year, 1979–2011) but only a low rate of forest loss (e.g. −0.035% per year, Sudest Island) was observed between 1974 and 2014, restricted to low elevations near villages. Future modelling showed varied impacts on the remaining forest extents of the larger islands. The study offers a rare contemporary example of a biodiverse hotspot that has remained relatively secure. We concluded that local cultural and environmental settings of islands in the south-west Pacific can strongly determine the patterns and processes of forest cover change, and need to be considered in programs to conserve endemic diversity.

First photographs of the endemic Tagula White-eye Zosterops meeki, on Sudest Island (Louisiade Archipelago), Papua New Guinea

First photographs of the endemic Tagula White-eye <i>Zosterops meeki</i>, on Sudest Island (Louisiade Archipelago), Papua New Guinea

Two New Species of Frogs Related toBarygenys exsul(Microhylidae) from New Guinea

Abstract: Barygenys exsul was described from only two specimens—one from Rossel Island and one from Sudest Island. I redescribe the species based on an additional 12 recently collected specimens from the type locality, and I provide the first information on that species' advertisement call. I then diagnose and describe two closely related new species found in geographic proximity to B. exsul. Both of these populations have been known for the past few decades but each had been erroneously assigned to B. exsul. The new species differ from B. exsul on the basis of a series of morphological, color-pattern, and call features. Each is narrowly endemic: B. exsul is limited to two islands in the Louisiade Archipelago, one of the new species is limited to nearby Woodlark Island, and the other is known from a limited area on southeastern-most mainland New Guinea. The Woodlark species exhibits a four-fold range of body sizes among adult males, which is unusually large among Papuan frogs.

A Remarkable Ontogenetic Change in Color Pattern in a New Species of Oreophryne (Anura: Microhylidae) from Papua New Guinea

Abstract We describe a new species of scandent/arboreal frog from Sudest Island, Louisiade Archipelago, off the southeastern tip of New Guinea that exhibits a remarkable ontogenetic change in color pattern. Juveniles are shiny black with lemon-yellow spots; adults are uniform peach with bright blue eyes. We detail the ontogenetic changes in color-pattern elements that comprise this transformation. This ontogenetic change, uniform peach adult coloration, and blue iris all appear to be unique features within the genus Oreophryne, most of whose members are tan, brown, or gray. We presume the striking juvenile color pattern to serve an aposematic function, but this conjecture requires testing. The new species is restricted to a relatively small patch of cloud forest perched on the highest peak of Sudest Island. Climate change may pose a threat to the new species if changing rainfall or temperature regimes result in the loss of this forest.

New Species of Toxicocalamus (Squamata: Elapidae) from Papua New Guinea

I describe two distinctive new species of elapid snakes of the genus Toxicocalamus from the southeastern end of Papua New Guinea. The first species, T. mintoni sp. nov., is unique within the genus in having the frontal fused with the supraoculars. It is a fairly gracile species of uniformly light-brown coloration and is known from only a single specimen from central Sudest Island. The second species, T. pachysomus sp. nov., is unique in its combination of having a distinct preocular unfused with the prefrontal, the internasal in contact with the preocular, the second supralabial in contact with the nasal, and paired subcaudals. Its stout habitus is unique within the genus, and its small eye is also distinctive. This species too is known from only a single specimen from the Cloudy Mountains, the southeasternmost portion of the island of New Guinea. Milne Bay Province, which is comprised of the southeastern extremity of New Guinea and its adjacent offshore islands, is a center of diversity for the genus Toxicocalamus, with five of 11 species in that genus endemic to that province.

Taxonomic partitioning of Cyrtodactylus louisiadensis (Lacertilia: Gekkonidae) from Papua New Guinea

As recently understood, the gecko species Cyrtodactylus louisiadensis (de Vis, 1892) ranges across eastern New Guinea and adjacent islands, the Solomon Islands, and northern Queensland. Within that portion of its range encompassed by Papua New Guinea I show that five species are currently masquerading under this appellation. Two of these occur in sympatry at the type locality for the species, Sudest Island. Because the type specimen is lost, the taxonomy of this complex has been confused, and two species are present at the type locality, I designate a neotype for C. louisiadensis so as to stabilize taxonomy within this complex. I describe the four additional species, C. epiroticus sp. nov., C. klugei sp. nov., C. robustus sp. nov., and C. tripartitus sp. nov., which differ from each other in a variety of scalational, mensural, and color-pattern features. Four of these species are confined to single islands off the southeastern peninsula of New Guinea. The fifth occupies the eastern rim of New Guinea.

A NEW SPECIES OF TREEFROG OF THE GENUS LITORIA (HYLIDAE) FROM THE LOUISIADE ISLANDS, PAPUA NEW GUINEA

I describe a new species of treefrog of the genus Litoria from Sudest Island, in the Louisiade Islands, off the southeastern tip of New Guinea. The new species is readily distinguishable from all other Papuan species of the genus except L. prora and L. humboldtorum in its possession of fully webbed hands and a fleshy rostral spike. It is distinguished from these species by its larger size, reduced crenelated fringes on arms and legs, absence of heel lappets, reduced papillae on the mandibular margin, and details of color pattern. I describe the tadpole for the new species and show that it differs from that of L. humboldtorum in morphology and color pattern. All three species form cohesive, distinct clusters in multivariate morphometric space. Morphologically, the new species most closely resembles L. humboldtorum, known from Yapen Island and the nearby New Guinea mainland 2000 km to the northwest. The new species was not found in recent surveys of nearby Rossel and Misima islands, the other large islands of the Louisiade group, and it may be restricted to Sudest Island.

Miliusa lanceolata (Annonaceae), a new species from Papua New Guinea

A new species, Miliusa lanceolata Chaowasku & Kesler (Annonaceae), is described and illustrated. It has been so far recorded from the D’Entrecasteaux Islands (Goodenough and Normanby Islands) and Louisiade Archipelago (Sudest Island), southeast off Papua New Guinea and is characterized by densely hairy young twigs, lanceolate leaves, and supra-axillary flowers with long pedicels. The relationship with similar species in the genus is also discussed and a key to the species of Miliusa in New Guinea is provided.

Food taboos, malaria and dietary change: Infant feeding and cultural adaptation on a Papua New Guinea island†

Despite seemingly abundant food resources, child malnutrition is prevalent on Vanatinai (Sudest Island), Papua New Guinea according to government surveys. Cultural adaptations to new technology, new cultigens, and new political systems have resulted in changes in subsistence strategies from a greater reliance on the collection of wild foods to a heavy emphasis on cultivation of starchy tubers. These may have negatively affected the nutritional status of children and adults. Examination of infant and child feeding practices suggests that traditional taboos on consumption of animal protein by children under weaning age contribute to child malnutrition, but these taboos may be a cultural adaptation to an environment of endemic malaria. The evidence for an antagonistic relationship between host malnutrition and malaria and the policy implications of such a relationship are discussed.

Miners, Labourers and Officials on the Lakekamu Goldfield of Papua

Before 1910 more white men came to Papua to look for gold than any other material or spiritual reward.1 Gold was the reason most of them were prepared to leave the beaches, more Papuans had worked for miners than any other employers, and the miners and their labourers were in advance of representatives of Western governments and Christian missions as the bearers of a foreign culture to many peoples in Papua. After the importance of the alluvial miners declined in Papua, prospec tors crossed the Mandated Territory of New Guinea from the Markham Valley to the Dutch border, and they opened the Morobe field which in the late 1930s produced up to six million dollars worth of gold in a year. One group of miners?Frank Pryke, George Arnold, William (Shark eye) Park, Les Joubert and Joe Sloane?first mined in British New Guinea, stayed on to work in Australian Papua, and were in Morobe to open the rich deposits on Koranga, Edie and Bul?lo in the 1920s. Between 1888 and 1910 the diggers worked alluvial fields in the islands of the south-east, and on the mainland at Milne Bay, Keveri, and in the Northern Division. They accepted Queensland mining law only slightly modified since the miners at Sudest Island had asked Dr William MacGregor for its introduction in 1888 and they used techniques learnt on Australian fields to recover the gold. But by 1910 the white miners in Papua behaved in ways unknown to the Australian alluvial miners. The Papuan miners were employers. They had come to believe that no white man could travel in the interior of Papua or work a claim without a 'team of boys'. On the early fields of Sudest and Woodlark Island some miners had argued that a man who used 'boys' to work a claim had an unfair advantage over other diggers, but by the early 1900s equality among white miners had been established on another level. The miners might still be independent battlers and bushmen, often in debt to store keepers, but to the ten or twelve men they had recruited as indentured labourers they were the tauhada or 'boss'.2 In fact, on Goodenough Island, the main recruiting ground for miners' labourers in Papua, time-expired men imposed the new order of men and masters on the old, and the normal word for a village leader became 'bossman'. Little has been written on the alluvial miners and their relations with the people they encountered and employed in Papua New Guinea. H. J. Gibbney has recounted the events of the goldrush of 1878 when no gold was found, and A. M. Healy in his work on the Morobe goldfields has a brief survey of events before the 1920s and has chapters on Bul?lo

The Languages of the Eastern Louisiade Archipelago

The vocabularies of the present notice are due to Dr. W. M. Strong. They were collected at Panakrusima (Earle Island) in the east-centralpart of the Calyados Chain, about 48 miles south-east of Panaieti(Deboyne Island) and at Panatinani (Joannet Island), about 18 milesto the east, close to North-West Tagula (Sud-Est Island).

NOTES ON PASSALIDAE (COL.) FROM SUDEST ISLAND

Proceedings of the Royal Entomological Society of London. Series B, TaxonomyVolume 1, Issue 5 p. 97-98 NOTES ON PASSALIDAE (COL.) FROM SUDEST ISLAND W. D. Hincks M.P.S., F.E.S., W. D. Hincks M.P.S., F.E.S.Search for more papers by this author W. D. Hincks M.P.S., F.E.S., W. D. Hincks M.P.S., F.E.S.Search for more papers by this author First published: May 1932 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-3113.1932.tb01361.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume1, Issue5May 1932Pages 97-98 RelatedInformation

Further notes on the birds of Sudest Island, or Tagula, in the Louisiade Group

Further notes on the birds of Sudest Island, or Tagula, in the Louisiade Group