The natural history of Namoluk atoll, eastern Caroline islands : with identification of vascular flora

Abstract

As of 1969, the scientific community had no general information on the natural history of Namoluk Atoll in the Eastern Caroline Islands of Micronesia. The only significant published source for the atoll was an ethnographic and linguistic account provided by the German physician. Max Girschner (1912, 1913), that contained a few brief passages on the biology and physical environment of the atoll. With this lack of basic descriptive environmental information in mind, I resolved to make observations and collections of specimens of use to other atoll scholars ancillary to an anthropological research project which I undertook on Namoluk from 1969-1971.