IMUA III: Pacific High Island Evolutionary Biogeography: Impacts of Invasive Species, Anthropogenic Activity and Climate Change on Hawaiian Focal Species

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Proposal Title: IMUA III: Pacific High Island Evolutionary Biogeography: Impacts of Invasive Species, Anthropogenic Activity and Climate Change on Hawaiian Focal Species Institution: University of HawaiiGoals: This project seeks to enhance the sustainability of Hawaii?s science and technology capabilities for understanding and predicting the impact of invasive species, anthropogenic activities, and climate change on the biodiversity, and ecosystem of the islands. The project also seeks to provide information on the current or potential future use of endemic Hawaiian species (endemic species are defined as any species in Hawaii and any species used by early Hawaiian society to define Hawaii?s place in the natural landscape) with a goal of sustaining focal species of historical importance to the original human inhabitants of Hawaii. The Environmental Dynamics and Ecosystem Responses (ENDER) project component was designed to develop a collaborative research network to address the environmental changes occurring throughout the Hawaiian archipelago in all ecosystems and across temporal and spatial scales. This component seeks to develop research synergy across climatic and other environmental gradients on the Big Island and eventually expanding their study to all of Hawaii and the Pacific. The Ecological Genomics and Metabolomics (ECOGEM) project component will identify endemic plant and animal species along two environmental transects (the ridge to reef across various microclimes of the Big Island and from the Big Island to Kure Atoll) along with other transects and examine the focal species for genetic and metabolic adaptive responses. Results of these studies will be important for the understanding of both short-term and long-term changes in Hawaiian ecosystems, and will contribute to understanding the impacts of human activities on tropical ecosystems world-wide. Intellectual MeritThis project significantly enhances the research competitiveness of Hawaii by building capacity in areas that support the state?s innovation goals. The key areas include expanding the speed and capability of cyber-connectivity; establishing comprehensive data management, advanced data visualization, and modeling capabilities; integrating existing and new geo-spatially referenced data sets related to ecological functionality and genomic and metabolomics of endemic, heritage and invasive species; and educating a new and ethnically diverse generation of citizens trained in science and technology.Broader ImpactsThis project will impact the diversity of the environmental sciences communities by engaging Native Hawaiian and students from Pacific Island cultures in the design and execution of modern scientific and technological research demonstrating that modern science and traditional cultural practices need not be incompatible. The inclusion of guidance from diverse cultures in the design and execution of the STEM activities that are important to the society within which those activities occur can serve as a prototype of science-community relationships throughout the world.