The reptile fauna of the Vanuatu Archipelago has received little research attention relative to the hyper-diverse reptile fauna of neighboring New Caledonia and the Loyalty Islands. Historically, the 83 islands of Vanuatu have been largely ignored by evolutionary biologists, including herpetologists, resulting in a poor understanding of the diversity within this island group.
I have been conducting fieldwork in Vanuatu since 2001, and have surveyed reptile populations on 19 islands, including most of the larger islands within the archipelago and encompassing the northern and southern islands. An immediate goal of this research is documenting the diversity of native and endemic species within Vanuatu, and developing an accurate understanding of species distributions and biogeographic patterns within these islands.
The ultimate goal of this research is to understand the factors that are responsible for generating this diversity. Many islands within this archipelago have a recent emergence history, enabling an examination of the relative contribution of factors such as geology, historic connections among islands driven by lowered sea levels, gene flow and migration among islands, and differing selection regimes imposed by habitat variation to diversification in this fauna.
This work has been possible in collaboration with the Environment Unit of the Republic of Vanuatu as well as numerous local people.