The Solomon Archipelago is a

terrestrial ecoregion An ecoregion (ecological region) or ecozone (ecological zone) is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a bioregion, which in turn is smaller than a biogeographic realm. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of l ...

and

marine ecoregion A marine ecoregion is an ecoregion, or ecological region, of the oceans and seas identified and defined based on biogeographic characteristics. Introduction A more complete definition describes them as “Areas of relatively homogeneous species ...

in the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the conti ...

. It includes the tropical ocean waters surrounding most of

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its capit ...

(excluding the

Santa Cruz Islands The Santa Cruz Islands are a group of islands in the Pacific Ocean, part of Temotu Province of the nation of Solomon Islands discovered by the Spaniards. They lie approximately 250 miles (400 km) to the southeast of the Solomon Islands ...

, which is a part of the

Vanuatu Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (french: link=no, République de Vanuatu; bi, Ripablik blong Vanuatu), is an island country located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is east of ...

marine ecoregion with the forests being part of the

Vanuatu rain forests The Vanuatu rain forests are tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests ecoregion which includes the islands of Vanuatu, as well as the Santa Cruz Islands group of the neighboring Solomon Islands. It is part of the Australasian realm, which ...

ecoregion), and includes

Bougainville Island Bougainville Island (Tok Pisin: ''Bogenvil'') is the main island of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, which is part of Papua New Guinea. It was previously the main landmass in the German Empire-associated North Solomon Islands, North Solo ...

, Buka, and the Tabar Islands of

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

and their surrounding waters. Bougainville is the largest island in the archipelago, while it is geographically part of the Solomon Archipelago, it is politically an autonomous region of Papua New Guinea. The

Solomon Islands rain forests The Solomon Islands rain forests are a terrestrial ecoregion covering most of the Solomon Islands archipelago. Geography Included are the islands of Bougainville and Buka, which are part of Papua New Guinea and most of the islands within th ...

form part of the East Melanesian Islands ecoregion, also known as the Solomons-Vanuatu-Bismarck moist forests, which is a

biogeographic Biogeography is the study of the distribution of species and ecosystems in geographic space and through geological time. Organisms and biological communities often vary in a regular fashion along geographic gradients of latitude, elevation, ...

region in the

Melanesia Melanesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It extends from Indonesia's New Guinea in the west to Fiji in the east, and includes the Arafura Sea. The region includes the four independent countries of Fiji, Va ...

subregion of

Oceania Oceania (, , ) is a geographical region that includes Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Spanning the Eastern and Western hemispheres, Oceania is estimated to have a land area of and a population of around 44.5 million ...

Key Biodiversity Areas

In the Solomon Islands there are 28 land based and 24 marine protected areas formally recognised (PIPAP 2016). The Pacific Islands Protected Areas Portal (PIPAP 2021) states that out of (1.82%) of the total land area of Solomon Islands is protected, while out of (0.12%) of the total marine area is protected. The protected areas in the Solomon Archipelago include: Arnavon Community Marine Conservation Area,

Kolombangara Kolombangara (sometimes spelled ''Kulambangara'') is an island in the New Georgia Islands group of the nation state of Solomon Islands in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The name is from a local language, a rough translation of its meaning is ...

Forest Reserve,

Makira The island of Makira (also known as San Cristobal and San Cristóbal) is the largest island of Makira-Ulawa Province in the Solomon Islands. It is third most populous island after Malaita and Guadalcanal, with a population of 55,126 as of 2020. ...

Highlands Conservation Area and Komarindi Catchment Conservation Area on Guadalcanal. There are 36 Key Biodiversity Areas identified for the Solomon archipelago, including Kunua Plains and Mount Balbi on Bougainville Island, Mount Maetambe – Kolombangara River Important Bird Area on

Choiseul Island Choiseul Island, native name Lauru, is the largest island () of the Choiseul Province, Solomon Islands, at . The administrative headquarters of Choiseul Province is situated in the town of Taro, on Taro Island. History In 1768, the French expl ...

Upland Forest, Guadalcanal Watersheds,

Nendö Island Nendö is the largest of the Santa Cruz Islands, located in the Temotu province of Solomon Islands. The island is also known as Santa Cruz, Nendo, Ndeni, Nitendi or Ndende. The name ''Santa Cruz'' was given to the island in 1595 by the Spa ...

and Marovo Kavachi, a submarine volcano known as

Kavachi Kavachi (also called sharkcano) is one of the most active submarine volcanoes in the south-west Pacific Ocean. Located south of Vangunu Island in the Solomon Islands, it is Kavachi after a sea god of the New Georgia Group islanders, and is also r ...

, which is to the south of

Vangunu Vangunu is an island, part of the New Georgia Islands in the Solomon Islands. It is located between New Georgia and Nggatokae Island. To the north and east of the island is Marovo Lagoon. The island has an area of . There are a small number of ...

Tropical forests of the Solomon Archipelago

This ecoregion consists of tropical lowland and montane forests on oceanic islands. The islands are predominantly hill forest, although only a few of the islands are higher than in elevation. The vegetation types in this ecoregion, include mangrove forests and saline swamp forests, coastal strand vegetation, freshwater swamp, riverine forests, different types of lowland rain forests and montane rain forest. The Solomon Islanders use trees from different forest types for housing, food and medicinal purposes. Large areas of the natural forest below have been logged or are planned to be logged. Forest clearing for subsistence agriculture also reduces the amount of natural forest. Seasonally dry forest and grassland is found only on the leeward (north) side of Guadalcanal as the result of the “rain shadow” caused by the mountains of Guadalcanal which are higher than in elevation.

Coral Triangle

Fringing

reef A reef is a ridge or shoal of rock, coral or similar relatively stable material, lying beneath the surface of a natural body of water. Many reefs result from natural, abiotic processes— deposition of sand, wave erosion planing down rock o ...

s are located around the coast of the mountainous

high island Geologically, a high island or volcanic island is an island of volcanic origin. The term can be used to distinguish such islands from low islands, which are formed from sedimentation or the uplifting of coral reefs (which have often formed ...

s of the Solomon Archipelago including: Choiseul, the

Shortland Islands The Shortland Islands is an archipelago of Western Province, Solomon Islands, at . The island group lies in the extreme north-west of the country's territory, close to the south-east edge of Bougainville Island, Papua New Guinea. The largest isl ...

, the

New Georgia Islands The New Georgia Islands are part of the Western Province of Solomon Islands. They are located to the northwest of Guadalcanal. The larger islands are mountainous and covered in rain forest. The main islands are New Georgia, Vella Lavella, Ko ...

, Santa Isabel, the

Russell Islands :''See also Russell Island (disambiguation).'' The Russell Islands are two small islands ( Pavuvu and Mbanika), as well as several islets, of volcanic origin, in the Central Province of Solomon Islands. They are located approximately northwest o ...

, the Florida Islands,

Tulagi Tulagi, less commonly known as Tulaghi, is a small island——in Solomon Islands, just off the south coast of Ngella Sule. The town of the same name on the island (pop. 1,750) was the capital of the British Solomon Islands Protectorate from 1 ...

, Malaita, Maramasike, Ulawa, Owaraha (Santa Ana),

(San Cristobal), and the main island of Guadalcanal. According to the WWF/Nature Conservancy system, the Solomon Archipelago is part of the Eastern Coral Triangle marine province of the Central Indo-Pacific

marine realm A marine ecoregion is an ecoregion, or ecological region, of the oceans and seas identified and defined based on biogeographic characteristics. Introduction A more complete definition describes them as “Areas of relatively homogeneous species c ...

. The Solomon archipelago has a rich and diverse marine life, including coral reefs and

seagrass meadow A seagrass meadow or seagrass bed is an underwater ecosystem formed by seagrasses. Seagrasses are marine (saltwater) plants found in shallow coastal waters and in the brackish waters of estuaries. Seagrasses are flowering plants with stems and ...

s. The archipelago is part of the

Coral Triangle The Coral Triangle (CT) is a roughly triangular area in the tropical waters around the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste. This area contains at least 500 species of reef-building corals in e ...

, the region of the western Pacific with world's greatest diversity of corals and coral reef species. The baseline survey of marine biodiversity in 2004, identified 494

coral Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and ...

species, including nine potentially new species and extended the known range of 122 coral species to include the Solomons. The 2004 survey also recorded 1,019 species of reef fish, of which 47 were species range extensions.

Dugong The dugong (; ''Dugong dugon'') is a marine mammal. It is one of four living species of the order Sirenia, which also includes three species of manatees. It is the only living representative of the once-diverse family Dugongidae; its closest m ...

s are found in the seagrass meadows and near-shore waters.Green, A., P. Lokani, W. Atu, P. Ramohia, P. Thomas and J. Almany (eds.) 2006. Solomon Islands Marine Assessment: Technical report of survey conducted May 13 to June 17, 2004. TNC Pacific Island Countries Report No. 1/06.

Reptiles

Lizards are the most diverse group of reptiles in the Solomon Archipelago, and within the lizards there are several different types: skinks (including the Solomon Islands skink or prehensile tailed skink ''

Corucia zebrata The Solomon Islands skink (''Corucia zebrata''), also known as prehensile-tailed skink, monkey-tailed skink, giant skink, zebra skink, and monkey skink, is an arboreal species of skink endemic to the Solomon Islands archipelago. It is the larg ...

'' and Poncelet’s crocodile skink '' Tribolonotus ponceleti'', which are

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...

to the Solomon archipelago), geckos, varanids (or ‘

monitors Monitor or monitor may refer to: Places * Monitor, Alberta * Monitor, Indiana, town in the United States * Monitor, Kentucky * Monitor, Oregon, unincorporated community in the United States * Monitor, Washington * Monitor, Logan County, West Vir ...

’), and agamids (or ‘dragons’) of the genus ''

Hydrosaurus ''Hydrosaurus'', commonly known as the sailfin dragons or sailfin lizards, is a genus in the family Agamidae. Different snake species are found in the Solomon Archipelago, ranging from those that live in the ocean (

sea krait Sea kraits are a genus of venomous elapid sea snakes (subfamily: Laticaudinae), ''Laticauda''. They are semiaquatic, and retain the wide ventral scales typical of terrestrial snakes for moving on land, but also have paddle-shaped tails for swimmi ...

s and sea snakes), those that live in moist conditions underground or in rotting logs and leaf litter (blind snakes '' Acutotyphlops''), and those that are found in the trees ( South Pacific tree boa, the

brown tree snake The brown tree snake (''Boiga irregularis''), also known as the brown catsnake, is an arboreal rear-fanged colubrid snake native to eastern and northern coastal Australia, eastern Indonesia (Sulawesi to Papua), Papua New Guinea, and many islands ...

''Boiga irregularis'' and the Solomons tree snake '' Dendrelaphis calligastra''). The sea kraits, and two other terrestrial species, the Solomons Red Krait '' Salomonelaps par'' and the Solomons Black-banded krait '' Loveridgelaps elapoides'', are members of the cobra family (''

Elapidae Elapidae (, commonly known as elapids ; grc, ἔλλοψ ''éllops'' "sea-fish") is a family of snakes characterized by their permanently erect fangs at the front of the mouth. Most elapids are venomous, with the exception of the genus Emydoce ...

'') and are considered dangerous due to their toxic venom. One species of crocodile, the

saltwater crocodile The saltwater crocodile (''Crocodylus porosus'') is a crocodilian native to saltwater habitats and brackish wetlands from India's east coast across Southeast Asia and the Sundaic region to northern Australia and Micronesia. It has been list ...

(''Crocodylus porosus'') is found in mangrove swamps, rivers and tidal estuaries, and also in the open ocean.

The mammalian species of the Solomon archipelago

Although this oceanic island ecoregion contains only forty-seven mammal species, twenty-six of those species are endemic or near endemic, including nine murid rodents (Melomys, Solomys, Uromys), fifteen pteropodid bats (Dobsonia, Melonycteris, Nyctimene, Pteralopex, Pteropus), one molossid bat (''

Chaerephon Chaerephon (; grc-gre, Χαιρεφῶν, ''Chairephōn''; c. 470/460 – 403/399 BCE), of the Athenian deme Sphettus, was an ancient Greek best remembered as a loyal friend and follower of Socrates. He is known only through brief descriptions ...

'') and the Flower-faced bat (''Anthops ornatus''). Three of the fruit bats,

Bougainville monkey-faced bat The Bougainville monkey-faced bat or Bougainville flying monkey (''Pteralopex anceps'') is a megabat endemic to Bougainville Island of Papua New Guinea and Choiseul Island of the Solomon Islands in Melanesia.Bowen-Jones, E., Abrutat, D., Markham, ...

(''Pteralopex anceps''),

Guadalcanal monkey-faced bat The Guadalcanal monkey-faced bat or Guadalcanal flying monkey (''Pteralopex atrata'') is a megabat endemic to Solomon Islands. It is listed as an endangered species. In 2013, Bat Conservation International listed this species as one of the 35 spe ...

(''Pteralopex atrata'') and

Montane monkey-faced bat The montane monkey-faced bat or montane flying monkey (''Pteralopex pulchra'') is a megabat endemic to the Solomon Islands. It is listed as a critically endangered species. Due to its imperilled status, it is identified by the Alliance for Zero ...

(''Pteralopex pulchra''), are critically endangered, and three of the rodents are endangered, Buka Island mosaic-tailed rat or Buka Island melomys (''Melomys spechti''),

Poncelet's giant rat Poncelet's giant rat or Poncelet's naked-tailed rat (''Solomys ponceleti'') is a species of rodent in the family Muridae. It is found in Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major i ...

or Poncelet's naked-tailed rat (''Solomys ponceleti''), and

emperor rat The emperor rat (''Uromys imperator'') is a large species of rodent in the family Muridae. It is endemic to the island of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. It is classified as critically endangered by the IUCN The International Union for C ...

(''Uromys imperator'') that is

to Guadalcanal.

The bird species of the Solomon archipelago

This oceanic island ecoregion has least seven endemic genera of birds. Makira (San Cristobal) and the New Georgia group, have their own endemic species. A total of 199 bird species inhabit the Solomons and of those birds, about 69 bird species are found nowhere else in the world. Two bird species are critically endangered:

Makira woodhen The Makira woodhen (''Gallinula silvestris''), also known as the Makira moorhen, is a species of bird in the family Rallidae. It is endemic to the Solomon Islands. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest and subtr ...

(''Gallinula silvestris''),

yellow-legged pigeon The yellow-legged pigeon (''Columba pallidiceps'') is a bird species in the family Columbidae. It is found in the Bismarck and Solomon archipelagos. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests and subtropical or tropi ...

(''Columba pallidiceps''). Four bird species are endangered: imitator goshawk or imitator sparrowhawk (''Accipiter imitator''),

Woodford's rail Woodford's rail (''Hypotaenidia woodfordi'') is a species of bird in the family Rallidae. Distribution and habitat It is endemic to the Solomon Islands archipelago. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest, subtropi ...

(''Hypotaenidia woodfordi''),

red-knobbed imperial pigeon The red-knobbed imperial pigeon (''Ducula rubricera'') is a bird species in the family Columbidae. It is found in Bismarck Archipelago and the Solomon Islands archipelago. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests. It ...

(''Ducula rubricera''), and white-eyed starling (''Aplonis brunneicapillus'').

References

{{Commons category, Solomon Archipelago Marine ecoregions Ecoregions of Papua New Guinea Ecoregions of the Solomon Islands Central Indo-Pacific