Past Projects
Past projects have included ecology-based work across O‘ahu on subjects such as invasive algal communities, coral recruitment dynamics, water quality mapping, feeding dynamics in fishponds, limu (algae) aquaculture, crab population distributions, and intertidal monitoring. Some examples of these projects are profiled below.
Maunalua Bay Restoration
This project measured benthic recruitment on recovering reefs in Maunalua Bay. The project focused on settlement plates deployed in the degraded, but recovering Maunalua Bay coastal reef system. OPIHI and collaborators were interested in the succession of benthic marine organisms, specifically crustose coralline algae (CCA), macroalgae (such as the invasives Gracilaria salicornia and Acanthophora spicifer), and corals. Understanding the relationships between submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) and its role in settlement dynamics is an important step for conserving the functional role of diversity on coral reefs.
OPIHI students helped to remove alien invasive algae which has established itself in Maunalua Bay. Removing invasive species has been helping native algae and seagrass regain a crucial foothold, transforming the local biodiversity and helping to improve water quality throughout the bay. These removal efforts are focused around the Paiko Lagoon Restoration Area, which is currently managed by Mālama Maunalua and the community.
OPIHI students helped to remove alien invasive algae which has established itself in Maunalua Bay. Removing invasive species has been helping native algae and seagrass regain a crucial foothold, transforming the local biodiversity and helping to improve water quality throughout the bay. These removal efforts are focused around the Paiko Lagoon Restoration Area, which is currently managed by Mālama Maunalua and the community.
Heatmaps of benthic species densities at Wailupe reef in Maunalua Bay, surrounding the submarine groundwater discharge source. Inshore environments at this location are almost entirely dominated by invasive macro-algae species, such as G. salicornia and A. specifera.
James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge
OPIHI is working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge to establish baseline populations of the Hawaiian pallid ghost crab (Ocypode pallidula) and mole crab (Hippa pacifica). These two species of crabs are an important part of the diets for endangered shorebirds, and understanding their population dynamics will further help conservation of this fragile food chain, especially during the recent invasion of the yellow crazy ant (Anoplolepis gracilipes), which threatens the entire ecological community at the James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge. Determining whether or not populations of endemic crabs are in decline will help managers protect this fragile ecosystem.
Comparison of ghost crab densities along the protected coastline of James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge on the North Shore of O'ahu between sampling years.