Abstract
It has been postulated that an ongoing decline of endemic insects in the Ogasawara Islands since the 1970's may be mainly due to predation by an exotic lizard, Anolis carolinensisfrom North America. Population density of A. carolinensisfound on Chichijima Island in the Ogasawaras was much higher than that reported in Saipan and the Bahamas. This may explain why insect populations have declined in the Ogasawaras but not in Saipan. Some males were observed to have pollen of Rosewood, Schima mertensianaan endemic tree to the islands on their heads. This pollen may be attached to their heads when A. carolinensisis sucking nectar, as is the case for other known lizard pollinators.
Reprinted from Okochi I, Yoshimura M, Abe T, Suzuki H (2006) Bulletin of FFPRI 5:265–269, with permission of FFPRI.
1) Research Planning and Coordination Division, Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute (FFPRT)
2) Kansai Research Center, Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute (FFPRI)
3) Department of Forest Vegetation, Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute (FFPRI)
4) KPO Institute of Boninology
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Acknowledgments
We thank Nathaniel Savory Jr., Dr. Yoshikazu Shimizu and our colleagues of the National Forest Division of Ogasawara General Office for their suggestions. Dr. Simon A. Lawson helped correct our English drafts. This study was supported by the grant-in-aid “Research on restoration of the forest ecosystem of the Ogasawara Islands by reducing the impact of introduced species” by the Ministry of the Environment, Japan.
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Isamu, O., Mayumi, Y., Tetsuto, A., Hajime, S. (2010). High population densities of an exotic lizard, Anolis carolinensisand its possible role as a pollinator in the Ogasawara Islands.. In: Kawakami, K., Okochi, I. (eds) Restoring the Oceanic Island Ecosystem. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-53859-2_12
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