Biodiversity and biogeography of the islands of the Kuril Archipelago

Abstract

Aim Based on seven consecutive seasons of biotic survey and inventory of the terrestrial and freshwater plants and animals of the 30 major islands of the Kuril Archipelago, a description of the biodiversity and an analysis of the biogeography of this previously little known part of the world are provided.Location The Kuril Archipelago, a natural laboratory for investigations into the origin, subsequent evolution, and long-term maintenance of insular populations, forms the eastern boundary of the Okhotsk Sea, extending 1200 km between Hokkaido, Japan, and the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia. A chain of more than 56 islands, the system is only slightly smaller than the Hawaiian Islands, covering an area of 15,600 km 2 and providing 2409 km of coastline.Methods Collections of whole specimens of plants and animals, as well as tissue samples for future molecular studies, were made by teams of scientists from Russia, Japan, and the USA, averaging 34 people for each of the seven annual summer expeditions (1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000). Floral and faunal similarities between islands were evaluated by using Sorensen's coefficient of similarity. The similarity matrix resulting from pair-wise calculations was then subjected to UPGMA cluster analysis.

Islands and scales: a biogeographic survey of reptiles on Kimberley islands, Western Australia

“…This coeffi cient has frequently been used in island biogeographic analysis (e.g. How and Kitchener 1997;Hice and Schmidly 2002;Pietsch et al 2003). The resultant association matrix was clustered using the unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA).…”

Initial source evaluation of archaeological obsidian from the Kuril Islands of the Russian Far East using portable XRF

“…The Bussol Strait is the widest strait in the Kuril Island chain, 109 km wide from Urup Island to Simushir Island (30 km between Urup and Chirpoi, and 79 km between Chirpoi and Simushir). The strait has a strong current flowing between the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk, and it is recognized as a biogeographic barrier to the movement of plants and animals from Hokkaido to the central and northern islands (Pietsch et al, 2003). Only three of the 49 pieces of obsidian from Hokkaido sources in this study were found north of the strait, one piece of obsidian from the Shirataki-A source on Chipoi Island, and one piece each from the Shirataki-A and Oketo-1 sources on Shiashkotan Island.…”

The terrestrial arthropods of Mauritius: a neglected conservation target

“…The total number of insects for Mauritius is likely to be an underestimate given that many taxa are taxonomically understudied. Compared to Hawaii (Miller and Elredge 1996), the island has a less diverse fauna but compared to Henderson Island (Benton 1995) and Kuril islands (Pietsch et al 2003), the fauna is more diverse. However, the evidence obtained from the data cannot be directly compared since the islands are from geographically different regions and vary in terms of size and degree of isolation.…”

“…Basset et al 2000;Chung et al 2000) as well as on smaller remote islands (e.g. Pietsch et al 2003;Miller and Elredge 1996;Benton 1995). Such studies, as well as providing a better understanding of the native arthropod fauna, can enhance the conservation value of these regions.…”