Mangrove forests and the benefits they provide to Micronesian ecosystems and communities are threatened by accelerating sea-level rise and human activities. Read this factsheet to learn more.
Native species
PI-CASC Federal Director Mari-Vaughn Johnson joins with AK CASC Federal Director Stephen Gray to present a webinar in July about progress on the exciting new PI-AK Collaboration.
PI-CASC Federal Director Mari-Vaughn Johnson joins with AK CASC Federal Director Stephen Gray to present a webinar in July about progress on the exciting new PI-AK Collaboration.
PI: Curt Storlazzi, Research Geologist, USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center
Co-I: Karen Thorne, Research Ecologist, USGS Western Ecological Research Center
Funded: FY2021
A recent publication details the methods used to develop and maintain a unique Marshallese agroforestry website created by PI-CASC researchers.
A fifteen minute podcast hosted by the US Fish & Wildlife Service highlighting MCC graduate student Lauren Kapono and her work monitoring ‘opihi (Cellana spp.) along the Kalaemanō shoreline of Hawaiʻi Island.
Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park is home to 23 species of endangered vascular plants and 15 species of endangered trees. Understanding how climate change may impact the park’s plants is vital for their long-term survival. This product was designed to assist managers of Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park in preparing for a changing climate by identifying how plant distributions within the park may shift under future climate conditions, focusing on how these distributions compare with currently defined Special Ecological Areas within the park.
Hawaiʻi is home to a rich diversity of native plants, about 90 percent of which are found nowhere else in the world, but changing climate conditions may reduce the amount of suitable habitat for native plants and contribute to the spread of invasive plant species. Scientists focused on 10 important native and five important invasive plant species, using over 35 years of data from thousands of locations in Hawai‘i to assess the plants’ preferred climate conditions and model their likely best future habitat based on climate change projections. The resulting maps and findings provide an initial set of decision support tools to help resource managers identify key locations for conserving native plants (and the birds and insects that rely on them) and for anticipating and controlling the spread of invasive plant species.
PI: Kasey Barton, Associate Professor of Botany, UH Mānoa
Co-PI: Anna McCormick, Department of Botany, UH Mānoa
Funded: FY2020
The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) launched this year with hopes of giving some promising students the opportunity to participate in climate science research with a university faculty mentor for ten weeks over the summer. Come learn more about what they accomplished.