Molluscan fauna of Gueishan Island of Taiwan

Chih-Wei Huang1, Ta-Wei Hsiung1

1 Biodiversity Research Center, Academia Sinica, 128 Academia Road Sec. 2, Nankang Dist., 11529, Taipei, Chinese Taipei

Corresponding author(s): Chih-Wei Huang (limnoperna@gmail.com), Ta-Wei Hsiung (beardavidwei@gmail.com)

Received {date}; Revised {date}; Accepted {date}; Published {date}

Citation: Combination of authors, year of data paper publication (in parentheses), Title, Journal Name, Volume, Issue number (in parentheses), and doi of the data paper.

Resource Citation

Jung BS and Lai KY (1999) Notes on mollusca collection on Gueishan Island. The Pei-Yo 25: 20-22. (In Chinese)

Abstract

This dataset records the occurrence and inventory of molluscan fauna on Gueishan Island, the only active volcanic island in Taiwan, based on the literature survey and field investigation conducted between 2011 and 2012. The literature review involved seven studies published from 1934 to 2003, which collectively reported 112 species from 61 genera and 37 families of Mollusca on Gueishan Island. Through our field investigation, we identified 34 species from 28 genera and 23 families. Fourteen of these species were new records on Gueishan Island: Liolophura japonica, Lottia luchuana, Nerita costata, Nerita rumphii, Diplommatina suganikeiensis, Littoraria undulata, Solenomphala taiwanensis, Assiminea sp., Siphonaria laciniosa, Laevapex nipponica, Carychium hachijoensis, Succinea erythrophana, Zaptyx crassilamellata, and Allopeas pyrgula. In Total, there are 126 species from 71 genera and 45 families of Mollusca on Gueishan Island.

Keywords: Mollusca, Gastropoda, Bivalvia, Cephalopoda, Polyplacophora, Taiwan, Gueishan Island, Occurrence, Observation

Project details

Project title: Molluscan fauna of Gueishan Island, Taiwan
Personnel: Wen-Lung Wu
Funding: Academia Sinica; National Science Council, Executive Yuan, R.O.C.(Taiwan); Taiwan Forest Bureau, Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan, R.O.C.(Taiwan).
Study area descriptions/descriptor: Gueishan Island is located about 10 km from Taiwan. The island was formed via volcanic activity about 1.65 Ma ago and experienced multiple volcanic eruption events until 20 ka ago (Juang et al. 2011). It is considered the only active volcanic island near Taiwan. The land area of the island is about 2.85 km2, and the highest peak of the island is 398 meters above sea level. There are two lakes on the island, one of which consist of brackish water (Head Lake) and the other of freshwater (Tail Lake). Humans colonized Gueishan Island in mid-19th century, by forming a small village. Later in 1977, all residents were moved back to Taiwan due to military requirements for the island. The fauna of this island were not investigated systematically until 2000, when the island came under the management of the Northeast and Yilan Coast National Scenic Area Administration, Tourism Bureau, MOTC and was open to tourists.
Design description: Island species are vulnerable to extinction due to their relatively small population size and limited access to resources. The number of species on an island represents a dynamic equilibrium between immigration and extinction. Volcanic islands provide particularly interesting cases of island biogeography, in that their biota is erased by volcanic activity and recolonized from neighboring regions. Species on Gueishan Island may have under gone several cycles of extinction after volcanic eruption, followed by recolonization from Taiwan when the sea-level dropped during glacial periods. Human activity may also have provided opportunities for colonization by mollusks, either intentionally or accidentally. Investigations of molluscan fauna have been previously conducted on Gueishan Island, but these did not involve a comprehensive examination of land snails. We performed a literature survey using diverse databases, in order to collect previously identified reports on molluscan fauna of Gueishan Island. In addition, we performed field sampling of mollusks in marine, freshwater and terrestrial environments during 2011 and 2012 to establish the inventory of molluscan fauna of Gueishan Island. We considered both the topography of the island and the habitats of mollusks during our field investigation. We focused on the terrestrial environment, as the majority of the earlier investigations examined non-terrestrial habitats. In total, our literature survey and field investigation identified 126 species from 71 genera and 45 families of Mollusca on Gueishan Island. This dataset provides basic information on the island’s biodiversity.

Data published through GBIF: http://taibif.tw/ipt/resource.do?r=gueishan_island

Taxonomic coverage

General taxonomic coverage description: The coverage of this dataset includes 126 species from 71 genera and 45 families of Mollusks of marine, freshwater and terrestrial environments on Gueishan Island. It includes Class Gastropoda (88.10%), Class Bivalvia (8.73%), Class Cephalopoda (1.59%), and Class Polyplacophora (1.59%). The top five representative families are Cypraeidae (20 species, 15.87%), Trochidae (13 species, 10.32%), Muricidae (11 species, 8.73%), Neritidae (8 species, 6.35%), and Littorinidae (5 species, 3.97%)
Taxonomic ranks
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Gastropoda, Bivalvia, Cephalopoda, Polyplacophora
Common names: snail, bivalves

Spatial coverage

General spatial coverage: The spatial coverage of the literature and our field investigation ranged from a latitude of 24°49'48''N to 24°51'0''N and a longitude of 121°55'48''E to 121°57'36''E. It includes the marine, intertidal, freshwater and terrestrial environment of Gueishan Island, Taiwan
Coordinates: 24°49'48''N and 24°51'0''N Latitude; 121°55'48''E and 121°58'12''E Longitude 

Temporal coverage: 1934 - December 31, 2012

Methods

Method step description: Species identification were based on Pace (1973), Lai (1990, 1998), Lee and Chen (2003), Wu and Lee (2005), and Hsieh et al. (2006).
Study extent description: We conducted literature survey and field investigation for Mollusca on Gueishan Island.
Sampling description: Literature survey: We searched for publications (including journals, project reports, thesis and books) associated with the molluscan fauna of Gueishan Island from the following databases: (1) the National Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations in Taiwan (http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw) (this contains details of theses and dissertations published since 1956, but did not contain publications relevant to this study); (2) the National Bibliographic Information Network (http://nbinet3.ncl.edu.tw) (this catalog integrates information from National Central Library and 74 other libraries containing all publications with a Taiwan ISBN and selected government project reports; three publications (Wu 2002, National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium 2003, Hwang and Lee 2003) from this database met our requirement); (3) the Government Research Bulletin (http://grbsearch.stpi.narl.org.tw/GRB/) (this contains government project reports made since 1993, but did not contain reports relevant to this study); (4) Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com.tw/) (this contains a wide range of resources, from journals and books to webpages, and it provided two relevant journal articles (Chen and Fu 2007, Lee and Chen 2010)); (5) The Taiwan Malacofauna Database (http://shell.sinica.edu.tw/) (this database contains taxonomy, distribution and references of all mollusks occurred in Taiwan, and provided six relevant publications (Lee and Wu 1998, Jung and Lai 1999, Wu 2002, National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium 2003, Hwang and Lee 2003, Chen and Fu 2007)). In addition, three relevant publications (Hayasaka and Tan 1934, Kuroda 1938, Kuroda 1941) were identified from citations in Wu (2002). In total, we identified ten relevant publications. Three of these publications (Lee and Wu 1998, Chen and Fu 2007, Lee and Chen 2010) were excluded because they described specimens acquired from fishing ports that had been captured by shrimp fishing or bottom trawling boats near Gueishan Island, without information of the sampling location. The seven remaining publications were used to establish the occurrence and inventory data. Sampling sites, names of collectors and the scientific name of each species were recorded using Microsoft Excel 2010. All of the publications mentioned above can be accessed in the National Central Library and the National Taiwan Library.
Field Sampling: The topology of Gueishan Island and the types of mollusk habitat were considered for field investigation. A visual search was conducted for mollusks in intertidal, freshwater and terrestrial environments (Figure 1). The surface of rocks on the southern coastline and man-made concrete structures in port were searched for marine mollusks during low tide. Leaf litter and rocks under or near water around Tail Lake (the only freshwater habitat on island) were inspected for freshwater mollusks. We inspected from leaves, trunks, leaves litter, rocks and rotten woods for land snails along three trails; one trail is around Tail Lake, another leads to the highest peak (401 Highland) on the island, and the other leads to the northern part of the island. We surveyed for land snails during their active periods: during and after rainfall, and in the early morning and at night. At least one living individual or dead shells of each species was collected as voucher specimens. Living organisms were brought back to laboratory, fixed via freezing in a -80℃ freezer, and subsequently transferred to 95% ethanol for long term preservation.
Quality control description: Latitude, longitude and altitude of sampling sites were recorded using Garmin GPSmap 60CSx with uncertainty of less than 10 meters. Sampling sites were georeferenced (WGS84). All the specimens collected by the field investigation were identified independently by Huang and Hsiung. Seven earlier studies described the mollucan fauna of Gueishan Island, but these publications lack clear photos or other information for identifying specimens. Species identification was performed using the following guide books and publications about Taiwan malacofauna: Pace (1973), Lai (1990, 1998), Lee and Chen (2003), Wu and Lee (2005), and Hsieh et al. (2006). New recorded species were further confirmed by Yen-Chen Lee, Mollusca specialist and postdoctoral researcher in the Biodiversity Research Center, Academia Sinica. Fourteen new recorded species were found to be native to Taiwan but previously unreported on Gueishan Island. The scientific names of all mollusks were checked against the Taiwan Malacofauna Database (http://shell.sinica.edu.tw/) and World Register of Marine Species (http://www.marinespecies.org/).

Datasets

Dataset description
Object name: Darwin Core Archive Molluscan fauna of Gueishan Island of Taiwan
Character encoding: UTF-8
Format name: Darwin Core Archive format
Format version: 1.0
Distribution: http://taibif.tw/ipt/archive.do?r=gueishan_island
Publication date of data: 2014-03-25
Language: English
Licenses of use: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CCZero 1.0 License http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode

Metadata language: English
Date of metadata creation: 2012-09-21
Hierarchy level: Dataset

References
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Kuroda T (1938) Geographic distribution of land snails in Taiwan. Taiwan Tigaku Kizi 9(4): 99-108. (In Japanese)
Kuroda T (1941) A catalogue of Molluscan shells from Taiwan (Formosa), with descriptions of new species. Memoirs of the Faculty of Science and Agriculture, Taihoku Imperial University 22(4): 65-216.
Wu YH (2002) Handbook of Eco Tours at Gueishan Island. Morning Star Publishers, Taichung, 285pp. (In Chinese) ISBN: 9574552896
National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium (2003) Investigation of Aquatic Biota of Head Lake and Tail Lake on Gueishan Island. Northeast and Yilan Coast National Scenic Area Administration, Tourism Bureau, MOTC, Yilan, Taiwan, 97 pp. (In Chinese)
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