If you’re looking for a high concentration of carbon, skip the trees and atmosphere, because soil contains more carbon than both of them combined. In fact, the highest stocks of carbon can be found where very deep soils exist – such as in the tropics.

Unfortunately, few people get to spend much time this close to deep soil. But that’s about to change with the Deep Soil Ecotron, a facility to be built at the University of Idaho that will enable scientists to conduct experiments on columns of soil up to 10 feet deep, using an $18.9M grant from the National Science Foundation.

The facility will contain as many of 24 “eco-units,” each with roughly three meters of intact soil monolith transported to Idaho from diverse places, potentially including tropical and volcanic ash soils from Hawaiʻi.

“Hawaiʻi’s soils provide key climate, weathering, and mineralogical end-members in global soil diversity, says Susan Crow of the Dept. of Natural Resources and Environmental Management. “As part of the Ecotron, Hawaiʻi’s soils will help us better understand the profound changes the earth system is currently undergoing, and hopefully better care for the earth’s ecosystems.”

By housing diverse soils together, scientists can establish a common set of experimental conditions, or subject one soil to a full set of interacting environmental variables. This capability will allow them to disentangle complex ecological processes that act together in response to climate, land use, and management change.  

Susan adds, “As a co-PI, my role is to be a member of the scientific leadership team that oversees the Deep Soil Ecotron commissioning and advising a cohort of graduate students focused on professional development in large-scale project development, implementation, and management (in addition to their deep soil research).”

Read more about the Deep Soil Ecotron.

ʻUaʻu kani, or Wedge-tailed Shearwater, is a seabird species common in Hawaiʻi. Though historically found nesting along coastlines, human development in these areas has likely reduced the availability of nesting habitats, pushing the seabird colonies to nest in undeveloped islets.

However, many coastal residents continue to observe ʻuaʻu kani nesting nearby – or on their properties – where they are unprotected and threatened by nest trampling due to human activity or construction; predation by rats, cats, mongoose, and dogs; and potentially, stress caused by proximity to human activity.

Surprisingly, a new study from the Dept. of Natural Resources and Environmental Management finds no significant difference in nesting success of the Wedge-tailed Shearwater at an unprotected, popular beach park versus a site with restricted public access.

“Though nesting success at Kailua Beach Park was slightly lower than nesting success at the restricted-access site, it seems so long as their underground nests aren’t trampled and collapsed, and no major predation events occur, colonies in busy beach parks can be successful,” says Jessica Idle, a graduate student in NREM’s Hawaiʻi Wildlife Ecology Lab.

Still, their conclusions have convinced stakeholders to construct “symbolic fencing” around the seabird colony at Kailua Beach Park to encourage park-goers to avoid walking through the nesting areas.

“We thank the City and County of Honolulu, Department of Parks and Recreation, for their support and permission allowing us to install signage and symbolic fencing at the Kailua Wedge-tailed Shearwater colony,” says Jon Gelman of Hawaiʻi Marine Animal Response, which constructed the fence. “We also thank the University of Hawaiʻi, Hawaiʻi Pacific University, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Pacific Islands Coastal Program for their collaboration and support of our seabird conservation projects.”

Stephanie Araki, Honolulu City and County’s Department of Recreation, adds, “Kudos to Ms. Idle and her colleagues for their commitment to protect our precious wildlife and to teach the rest of us about our seabird ‘ohana. We are honored to have played an insignificant role in this significant study and hope that the protective fences enable the Wedge-tailed Shearwaters to survive and return to their Kailua home for many years to come.”

NREM and its partners hope to encourage Hawaiʻi residents with seabirds nesting in their neighborhoods, local parks, and back yards to consider similar temporary fencing and signage.

“Further steps that everyone can take include keeping dogs leashed near nesting colonies, minimizing noise and activity near colonies at dawn and dusk when the adult birds are coming and going from the nests, and turning off indoor and outdoor lights in November and December to protect young seabirds leaving the nest for the first time,” Jessica adds.

Read the full study, “Wedge-tailed Shearwater (Ardenna pacifica) nesting success in human-dominated coastal environments,” which appears in the latest PeerJ.

Photos courtesy of Alex Awo and Hawai‘i Marine Animal Response.

U.S. Army Garrison Hawai‘i’s Schofield Barracks is home to an elite unit whose mission is to protect the island of O‘ahu from invasion.

They use helicopters and four-wheel drive vehicles; often rappel down steep mountainsides; and use their highly trained special skills to carry out their assigned objectives.

While the description certainly brings to one’s mind the famed U.S. Army Rangers, this group utilizes their specialized acumen and knowledge in conservation biology to protect endangered species and habitats on more than 50,000 acres of U.S. Army training ground on the island. They are members of the Army Natural Resource Program on O‘ahu (ANRPO), an approximately $21 million project funded through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Army.

 As a federal agency, the U.S. Army is required by the Endangered Species Act of 1973 to protect any federally listed endangered or threatened animals and plants in their training areas and to ensure they are not negatively impacted. Additionally, they are bound by the Sikes Act that covers wildlife, fish and game conservation and rehabilitation on military reservations.

“In Hawai‘i, the U.S. Army is responsible for over 120 endangered plants and animals, the highest number of endangered species for any Army garrison in the United States,” said U.S. Army Garrison Hawai‘i Natural Resource Manager Kapua Kawelo. “Through ANRPO, the U.S. Army is able to maintain compliance in their five O‘ahu training areas, enabling service members from the Army, Marines, Navy, Air Force, National Guard and Reserve, as well as local law enforcement agencies, to successfully maintain their operational readiness.”

The ANRPO team consists of two U.S. Army Garrison Hawai‘i civilian employees and over 50 contract biologists and technicians who protect the native habitats via removal of pigs and goats from fenced units, invasive plant control and eradication, vegetation restoration, and rodent and slug control. In addition, ANRPO maintains and increases populations of endangered plants and animals through monitoring, cultivation and reintroduction. The program collaborates and consults extensively with conservation entities across the state of Hawai‘i including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Hawai‘i State Division of Forestry and Wildlife, Hawai‘i State Department of Land and Natural Resources, the O‘ahu Invasive Species Committee, the Hawaiian Seed Bank Partnership, the Hawai‘i Rare Plant Restoration Group, and the Honolulu Board of Water Supply, as well as many other municipal and private entities.

As new challenges and obstacles arise that often require innovative solutions, ANRPO regularly partners with researchers from various institutions and agencies from around the world. While the University of Hawai‘i has always been the defacto institution due to its location and expertise, a much stronger research relationship has developed when the University of Hawai‘i Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation (OVPRI) entered into a cooperative agreement to administratively oversee ANRPO in 2018.

“The outstanding conservation work done by ANRPO is not only vital to the operational readiness of military forces in Hawai‘i, but also to preserving and maintaining the state’s finite natural resources and habitats,” said UH Vice President for Research and Innovation Vassilis L. Syrmos. “The partnership allows us to seamlessly integrate our excellent cadre of researchers to work collaboratively with ANRPO staff to find innovative solutions to constantly evolving issues in environmental&

Wildfires on Pacific Islands isnʻt so much a story of climate change but rather, how human actions (and inaction) have created highly flammable landscapes. The good news? If human activity can be altered, so can landscapes – and restored to be less vulnerable to fire.

“What is unique about fire on Pacific Islands is how clearly it is linked to people,” writes Extension Specialist Clay Traurnicht of the Dept. of Natural Resources and Environmental Management in an opinion-editorial article published in The Hill. “Lightning is rare on small islands, restricting “natural” fires to volcanic events. When Pacific Islands were first settled, the ignition switch was flipped on, as fire was used for many purposes like clearing land for farming, maintaining access to forested areas, and controlling pests.”

Clay adds, “Even now, nearly all fires on Pacific Islands are started by people, with ignitions tightly correlated with population. This also means that forest-dwelling plants and animals of Pacific Islands, many of which are found nowhere else, are poorly adapted to fire. However, it is important to understand that the negative impacts of fire on Pacific island ecosystems radically increased with colonization and militarization that brought in weeds, many of which promote fire.”

Read Clay's op-ed article in The Hill.

“My research has found that… higher rainfall events can contribute more to fire risk down the road than real-time drought conditions,” Clay Trauernicht told KHON2 newscasters on Monday.

The Extension Specialist in Ecosystems and Fire in the Dept. of Natural Resources and Environmental Management was interviewed about recent brushfires occurring throughout the Islands.

Another contributing factor, he says, is that former agricultural lands are abandoned and overrun with invasive species. Twenty-five percent of Hawaiʻi’s landmass, about 1,000,000 acres, is dominated by these grasses and shrubs. On the other hand, fuel breaks would allow firefighters to come in and provide a safe environment for them to work.

“More importantly than fuel break stopping it is the fuel breaks that allow the firefighters to come in and provide a safe environment for the firefighters to work,” Clay said.

Read the full KHON2 story.