Report of a preliminary survey of the land snail fauna of Rotuma

In May 2012 a survey of the land snails of Rotuma was undertaken. The last previous survey that included land snails collections on Rotuma was conducted over seventy years ago but no dedicated report of that survey seems to exist. The current survey was carried out to: record the number and type of 'introduced' snails present and provide information on the potential risk to human, crop and livestock health of any introductions found, and investigate if any previously recorded native and endemic land snail fauna was still alive. Provision of land snail sampling and identification training to targeted community members was also undertaken. We found 70% of the living snail species identified during the survey were introduced and that 91% of the native snail fauna found was recorded only as dead shells. Unexpectedly we also found the notorious land snail predator, Platydemus manokwari, a well-documented invasive flatworm native to Papua New Guinea. To our knoweldge this introduced invasive species is not yet found in other parts of Fiji. These results mean that an evaluation of existing quarantine measures is required to address the potential spread of the flatworm Platydemus manokwari to other parts of Fiji, that relatively simple education programs on non-cooked food preparation would be beneficial to the community in respect to the potential for introduced snails to act as disease vectors, and that sampling to further search for living endemic snail fauna, in less accessible areas, is urgently needed. This report contributes to several different objectives of Fiji's National Biodiversity Strategy Action Plan (DoE 2007) particularly Objective 2.6 - the establishment of specific research programmes on Rotuma.