부산대학교 도서관

Amphibians and reptiles are a taxon of vertebrates and play several important roles in the ecosystem, but the current population decline is remarkable due to various causes. Meanwhile it is known that research about islands has an impact on various academic fields due to their ecological and geographical characteristics different from those of the mainland. The Republic of Korea is a peninsula country with over 3,300 large and small islands, and it can be regarded to have appropriate resources in island biological research for this reasons. This study was conducted from 2021 to 2022 at the Honam National Institute of Biological Resources, a representative island and coastal biological resource research institute, to identify fauna of amphibians and reptiles inhabiting 17 islands. As a result, a total of 14 amphibian species and 15 reptile species were confirmed, including 6 species in Incheon Metropolitan City, 13 species in Chungcheongnam-do, 3 species in Jeollabuk-do, 24 species in Jeollanam-do, over 12 species in Gyeongsangnam-do, and 12 species in Jeju Special Self-Governing Province. As endangered species (the class II), Kaloula borealis, Pelophylax chosenicus, Elaphe schrenckii, and Eremias argus were investigated. Ecosystem disturbing speciess included the Lithobates catesbeianus found in Anmyeon-do and most of Jeollanam-do, and the Trachemys scripta found in three islands. Ten species that have been reported to distribute in Republic of Korea including inland areas before, but were not investigated in this study. So further investigation appears to be necessary in the future to confirm whether the species inhabits islands. In the future, we plan to continuously update the list of species inhabiting each region and collect various information to contribute research about island and coastal biological resources, such as inferring the species' preferred habitat, deriving habitat suitability factors, phylogeny, and population genetic diversity.