The shore ecology of Suva and South Viti Levu

Abstract

This handbook has been written with a limited aim. It is designed as an introduction, for student classes in marine biology, to the intertidal communities - reefs, grass-flats and mangroves - of the shores accessible from Suva. It was prepared, as the need arose, for the use of field courses made up of senior undergraduates from the Universities of the South Pacific, and of Auckland, who have been gathering together in August, under our joint teaching. Fiji's coastal communities, along with the rain forests, must be her proudest natural asset. Few other Universities have such a rich and diverse resource so close to the campus. Definitive environment studies, whether of population dynamics, physiological ecology or conservation, will not flourish without a confident acquaintance with the communities and their species. This guide has a hahitats framework; and - while many animal and plant species are mentioned and figured - it is not primarily an identification manual. For taxonomic treatment, the student must turn to specialist literature of the different groups, incomplete as it still is, steadily being produced for the south-west Pacific.