Description: This is a large archipelago forming a broad, ca 1500km long, arc across the sub-equatorial south Pacific, east of New Guinea and the Bismarck Sea, from Bougainville Island in the west to San Cristobel island in the south-east. The island chain divides the equatorial Pacific in the north from the Solomon and Coral Seas in the south. The ecoregion is tectonically active, with episodic earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanism. All reef types are present. Several large, isolated atolls, including Ontong Java, are located ca 200km north of the main island chain. Most of the larger islands have highly complex, convoluted coastlines offering a wide variety of reef habitats, including an extensive array of fringing, lagoonal patch and barrier reefs. These are are well developed, including a double barrier reef system, on the north-eastern side of Morovo Lagoon, one of earth's largest reefal lagoon systems, and a World Heritage Area. Well to the south-east, the more isolated Rennell Island, a raised coral atoll, also holds World Heritage status, with its remarkable raised lagoon - Lake Tengano. Many islands are only sparsely populated and have signifcant original forest cover remaining, despite the depredations of both legal and illegal forestry operations that have caused sedimentation of incident reefs. Reefs around the larger population centres, including the administrative capital of Honiara, are impacted by a wider range of disturbances, including localized pollution. Reef waters are mostly clear to very clear

Distinguishing ecoregion characteristics: It is delineated from Bismarck Sea, Milne Bay and Coral Sea ecoregions in the Solomon Sea. In the west, Bougainville Island is close to New Britain of the Bismarck Sea ecoregion. In the east, the Solomon Islands are semi-continuous with Vanuatu, and the eastern-most islands, located east of the deep trench separating the Solomons from Vanuatu, are included in the latter ecoregion. Although the coral fauna has been studied during broad-scale research cruises, records are not sufficiently comprehensive to allow the Solomon Islands ecoregion to be subdivided

Additional Information: Solomon Islands and Bougainville corals have close affinity with those from the Bismarck Sea and Milne Bay. These form a coherent group with only distant affinity to other western Pacific ecoregions (Veron, Stafford-Smith, DeVantier et al., 2015)

General Ecoregion References: Spalding, Ravilious and Green (2001); Morris and Mackay (2008); Chin, Lison de Loma, Reytar et al. (2011); Burke, Reytar, Spalding et al. (2012); Veron, Stafford-Smith, DeVantier et al. (2015);

Principal Coral Distribution References: In preparation