RESEARCH PROJECT

A large percentage of historically forested areas in Hawaiʻi have been lost, in part due to changes in how land was used, such as forest clearing to create pasture for livestock. Forest conversion resulted in widespread loss of native biodiversity and important ecosystem functions while increasing landscape-scale risk of fire. Targeted restoration efforts have the potential to increase abundance of native forest and support the return of important functions. Yet, key obstacles remain. First, much of the restoration knowledge that exists is experiential and thus often inaccessible. Second, restoration efforts are faced with the challenge of a changing climate that is leading to increases in temperature and the occurrence of drought in Hawaiʻi.

This project brings together a multi-disciplinary team to engage in both knowledge synthesis and experimental approaches to develop tools and create strategies to support restoration practitioners. The research team will build from the existing Hawaiʻi Forest Restoration Synthesis project by facilitating engagement between researchers and practitioners and by developing resources to support adaptive management. To complement the tool-building and facilitation, the team will conduct an experiment to determine if native plants grown from seeds sourced in drier areas fare better than those sourced from wetter areas, when exposed to simulated drought and invasive grass competition. This field experiment was designed to help practitioners better plan for restoration in the context of a changing climate, as well as to share and learn with local community and students.