To judge by the research awards handed out by the Hawai‘i Invasive Species Council, the state’s gravest invasive threats are melastomes (including miconia), the snowflake coral, alien marine algae, and the noisy coqui frog.
The single largest grant was awarded for the study of control methods for alien algae to Cindy Hunter, of the University of Hawai‘i. Research into biocontrol of miconia and its close cousin, tibouchina, accounted for three grants totaling $144,097. Two projects addressing Carijoa riisei, or snowflake coral, were approved, with grants totaling $92,552. And two projects address ing coqui were approved, with grants total ing $49,475.
Altogether, some 17 research and tech nology projects addressing the state’s great est invasive species threats won Land Board approval on May 13. That clears the way for the projects to receive more than $600,000 from the Hawai‘i Invasive Species Council, established by the Legislature in 2003 to control invasive species in the state and prevent future introductions.
Seven-hundred thousand dollars of HISC’s $4 million budget has been earmarked for research and technol ogy. More than 70 projects were submitted following an invitation for bids published last November. HISC recommended board approval of 17. HISC will provide a total of $600,165, which will be matched by $983,572 in non-state funds.
Here are short descriptions of the projects that will be supported by the HISC funds.
- University of Hawai‘i professor Hunter will receive $82,980 to help develop methods to control alien algae on Hawai‘i’s reefs. Among other things, Hunter will explore the use of native sea urchins as a way of holding down invasive algae growth in
some areas. - $78,747 for work on accelerated evalu ation of insects in Costa Rica and Brazil for biocontrol of Micona calvescens, a highly invasive plant that has devastated Tahiti’s forests and is found on Hawai‘i, Maui, and O‘ahu. The project leader is Tracy Johnson of the Institute of Pacific Islands Forestry, an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service. The funds will support work begun in 2000 at the Univer sity of Costa Rica and the Federal Univer sity of Vicosa.
- $37,275 for Johnson to conduct quarantine tests on an insect identi fied in earlier work as a promising biocontrol agent. The species, Diclidophlebia sp., attacks growing shoots of miconia. The quarantine work will be done at the new quarantine facility at Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park.
- Johnson received a third grant of $28,075 to conduct quarantine testing of a beetle from southern Brazil as a biocontrol agent for another plant in the melastome family, Tibouchina herbacea, also called glorybush. The beetle, Johnson writes in his proposal, is the best of several potential biocontrol agents “because it appears to be host-specific and causes substantial damage to plants.” $52,018 to support work targeting the invasive snowflake coral, Carijoa riisei. Rob Toonen and Sam Kahng, both of the Univer sity of Hawai‘i, will examine the potential of a nudibranch, Phyllodesium poindimiei,to control the coral through predation. Carijoa is an invasive soft coral that was first discov ered in Hawai‘I in 1972. It has overgrown more than 50 percent of black coral colonies in the Au‘au channel between Maui and Lana‘i, and threatens to displace sponges, algae, bryzoans and other corals and alter reef ecosystems. The predatory nudibranch, found in the Western Pacific from Okinawa to Australia, was discovered in 2004 feeding on snowflake coral on the north and south shores of O‘ahu.
- Toonen and Kahng received a sec ond award of $40,534 to study the ecol ogy of Carijoa riisei.
$50,000 to support work address ing the nettle caterpillar, Darna pallivita. The caterpillar was first dis covered in Hawai‘i in September 2001 and has the potential to become a major agricultural pest, as it feeds on coffee, macadamia, and landscape plants. The project will be carried out by Eric Jang and Matthew Siderhurst of the USDA Agricultural Research Center, UH’s Arnold Hara, and Patrick Conant with the state Department of Agriculture’s Plant Pest Control Branch. The researchers will explore ways of con trolling the insect’s life cycle through phero mone manipulation. - $47,359 for UH graduate student Sheldon Plentovich’s and Zoology Department chair Sheila Conant’s investigation into impacts of the big-headed ant and the tropical fire ant on nesting shearwaters and arthropods. Selected for study are the paired Mokulua islets, off shore of Lanikai; Popoi‘a, the flat island in Kailua Bay; and Moku‘auia, offshore of La‘ie.
- $37,400 to develop an early-detection and early-reporting program for invasive spe cies in Maui County. Principal investigator is Kevin Hopkins of the Pacific Aquaculture and Coastal Resources Center at the Univer sity of Hawai‘i-Hilo.
- Fred Kraus, a herpetologist with the Bishop Museum, was awarded $36,250 to develop a database of reptile and amphibian introductions and then use that database to conduct more detailed studies of the ecologi cal and economic risks associated with the most widespread of these invaders.
- Karen Beard of Utah State University will receive $26,800 to study the ecological consequences of the coqui frog in Hawai‘i. Beard began work in this area last year. State funds will support both small-scale experi ments involving areas with and without coqui, and larger-scale studies on the coqui as both prey and predator.
- Coqui control is the target of a second HISC grant. This one, in the amount of $22,675, was awarded to William Durston of Leilani Nursery and Arnold Hara of the University of Hawai‘i to design and build a second-generation prototype of a thermal treatment system to heat-treat plants before they are shipped from coqui-infested nurs eries.
- The Maui Invasive Species Commit tee was awarded $25,000 to obtain basic information on Hawai‘i’s only known breed ing population of veiled chameleons (Chamaeleo calyptratus) in Hawai‘i. The population is in a residential area of Makawao, Maui. The study includes outfit ting two adult chameleons with radio transmitters, so their activities can be tracked.
- Parrots are among the most attractive non-native birds in Hawai‘i, but they can have wide-ranging impacts. Kirsten Silvius of the University of Hawai‘i’s Environmen tal Center has been awarded $10,489 to study the foraging and movement patterns of the red-masked conure on O‘ahu,
- Linda Burnham Larish of the state Department of Health will receive $2,243 to survey and map the range of a newly arrived mosquito on the Big Island, Aedesjaponicus japonicus. Larish discovered the mosquito last year, and so far it has been found only on the Big Island. Because the mosquito is feeds on both birds and mammals as well as hu mans, it could be an efficient vector of West Nile virus.
- Danielle Frohlich and Curt Daehler of the University of Hawai‘i received $820 to study effects of fountain grass manage ment on tropical dry forests.
<li.The black twig borer, Xylosandrus compactus, is a scourge of both commer cially valuable plants, such as coffee, anthu riums, and koa, as well as some of Hawai‘i’s rarest shrubs and trees. (For a fuller discus sion, see the May 2005 issue of Environment Hawai‘i.) A grant of $21,500 was awarded to the Hawai‘i Agriculture Research Station’s Nick Dudley, Nancy Gillette, an entomolo gist with the USDA Forest Service, John Stein, of the USDA Forest Service, and Mark Wright, an entomologist at the University of Hawai‘i. The funds will be used to iden tify chemical attractants and repellants that may help manage the insect.
— Patricia Tummons
Volume 15, Number 12 June 2005
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