The overlooked collection of Ludwig Kaiser and a little-known report on birds of Nauru

摘要

Nauru (00°32'S, 166°56'E) is a small (21 km~2) single-island republic in the west-central Pacific Ocean, c.2,100 km north-east of New Guinea. Banaba (Ocean Island) is its nearest neighbour, c.300 km to the east. A 100-300 m wide coastal belt, wheremost of the c.10,000 islanders reside, abuts a scarp that rises to a max. 72 m on the central plateau. Coastal vegetation consists largely of strand, ruderal weeds and shrubs, ornamentals, and scattered coconut Cocos nucifera and fruit trees. More than 100 years of continuous phosphate mining has eliminated much of the plateau's original forest, leaving just remnants, mainly along the edges and slopes of the scarp. The interior is largely a regenerating scrubland within a skeletal framework of coral pinnacles 4-8 m high, from around which the soil and phosphate deposits have been excavated.