Wildlife and Plants

This study focuses on assessing changes in vegetation cover and composition inside and outside a fenced exclosure within the USGS Ridge-to-Reef study area on the island of Moloka‘i. This information will be delivered to federal, state, and private land managers who are trying to determine best management practices to reduce erosion and sediment runoff from this dry habitat which has been heavily...

Small mammals (including three species of rats and one species of mongoose) and social Hymenoptera (order of insects including ants and yellowjacket wasps) form two groups of alien predators in Hawaiian ecosystems. The combined impact of these predators has resulted in substantial loss or reduction of native biota in the Pacific. Furthermore, given the past successes of managing or excluding feral...

Within a context of human-mediated land cover change, invasive competitors, predators and disease, conservation biologists and practitioners are now concerned that climate change will further impact the beleaguered flora and fauna of the Pacific Islands. Across the region and elsewhere, to determine these potential impacts of climate change on species and ecosystems, research efforts have focused...

Montane plant communities in widely separated intact natural environments of the world have responded to changes in precipitation and temperature regimes by shifting both margins and core distributional ranges upward in elevation. Reduced evapotranspiration rates in cooler climate zones at higher elevation may compensate for less precipitation and higher temperatures within species’ former ranges...

Feral pigs ( Sus scrofa ) have been identified as a significant problem in 120 U.S. National Wildlife Refuges. Pigs cause substantial degradation to natural ecosystems through rooting, digging, and browsing, but they are particularly destructive in Hawai‘I, which has no native terrestrial large mammals.

Avian botulism causes waterbird mortality in Hawai‘i's wetlands and elsewhere. We will evaluate using trained scent-detection canines (sniffer dogs) as a new tool to survey for the presence of avian botulism. Biologists will compare variables influencing detection probability and detection rates with traditional search methods. The pilot study will test the feasibility of this approach as a new...

The terrestrial biota of the Central Pacific is primarily defined by its degree of isolation. At the center lies the Hawaiian Archipelago, which is more than 3,200 km from any continental land mass. After tens of millions of years of evolutionary isolation from all mammals except bats, islands of the Central Pacific were quite suddenly besieged by a number of alien rodents, carnivores and both...

Many of Hawai‘i’s forest birds have shown significant declines in the past 200 years, with many currently listed as endangered species. Multiple threats have been identified as contributing to declines, including disease, invasive species, habitat loss, and decreased survivorship and productivity caused by introduced predators. Demographic and ecological studies are needed to determine how...

The Hawaiian Hoary Bat ( Lasiurus cinereus semotus ) is the only extant land mammal native to the Hawaiian archipelago. It is listed as endangered due to apparent population declines, and a lack of knowledge concerning its distribution, abundance, and habitat needs. Agencies and landowners in Hawai‘i seek to assist in the creation of sustainable uses for managed lands while also protecting bat...

Mesic forests of Hawai‘i island provide an ideal system for the study of forest restoration because they have a similar history to other tropical and subtropical forests globally, while maintaining a relatively simple species assemblage. Many of these forests were cleared for grazing, and then later abandoned, to become dominated by pasture grasses that form competitive layers such that native...

Loss of wetlands, invasive plants, and non-native predators pushed Hawaii’s waterbirds to the brink of extinction by the early 1900s, although population numbers have improved somewhat in recent decades with conservation efforts. Nonetheless, all Hawaiian waterbirds have global population sizes estimated around or below below 2,000 individuals, making them still highly vulnerable to extinction...

Low-elevation Pacific islands are vulnerable to inundation from sea-level rise and sudden flooding events. The largely low-lying islands of Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI), that extend 1,930 km beyond the main Hawaiian Islands, are a World Heritage Site and part of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. The NWHI support the largest tropical seabird rookery in the world, provide...