Biology Department News

A group of UH Hilo undergraduates participating in a federal program to advance under-represented students in biomedical and behavioral sciences presented their research at the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students held in Anaheim, Calif.

By Leah Sherwood.

A group of University of Hawai‘i at Hilo undergraduates participating in a campus program that supports under-represented students interested in biomedical and behavioral sciences presented their research at a national conference last month. The work was presented at the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students held in Anaheim, Calif.

The students are part of the Students of Hawai‘i Advanced Research Project, commonly called the SHARP program, which is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement (RISE) and administered through the UH Hilo Department of Anthropology. The program supports all under-represented UH Hilo students, particularly Native Hawaiians and Pacific islanders, to develop interest and competence in biomedical and behavioral sciences research to help them advance to doctoral studies.

Currently, UH Hilo is the only school in the state of Hawai‘i that has a SHARP program.

For many of the students, the trip was their first time presenting off-island at a major conference. Lenard Allen, the SHARP coordinator, says these events are necessary because they place the students in new situations and force them to communicate their work with strangers, which builds their confidence.

“They leave the comfort of the institution; some of our students have not traveled off the island,” says Allen. He explains that attending the conference, watching the different speakers, and networking are key to their success and open doors to them. “Some of our students were offered jobs during the conference,” he says.

Approximately 5,500 participants representing more than 350 institutions attended the four-day conference (see the program). Undergraduates and early researchers were invited to showcase their research through poster or oral presentations, representing 12 disciplines within the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. The UH Hilo students networked with peers and other researchers and professionals, learned about graduate school opportunities, and honed their professional development skills.

Seven of the students presented their undergraduate work in biomedical and behavioral sciences research. The following student papers were presented.

• Keinan B. Agonias: “Antibacterial Effects of Metrosideros polymorpha on Colony Forming Units of Pathogenic Bacteria.” Agonias’s coauthor and faculty mentor is Stan Nakanishi, professor of biology at UH Hilo.
• Maya Sunshine P. Bernardo: “Effects of Cortisol and Fat Distribution Pre- and Post-season of Women Student-athletes Volleyball Season.” The coauthors include her faculty mentor Lincoln Gotshalk, associate professor of kinesiology and exercise sciences, and UH Hilo undergraduates Jia Hao Yao and Tyler Honda.
• Duke E. Escobar: “Antibacterial Effect on Pathogenic Bacteria of Metrosideros polymorpha Liko Extract.” The coauthors are fellow SHARP student Agonias, and faculty mentor Nakanishi.
• Evangeline Lemieux: “Stress and Recovery After Kilauea Eruption.” The coauthors are fellow SHARP student Joshua Turner and faculty mentor Lynn Morrison, professor of anthropology.
• Kieran-Tiaye A. Long: “Investigating the Effects of Social Stress on Light-avoidance Behavior in Planaria.” Long’s coauthor and faculty mentor is Nakanishi.
• Dallas Tada: “Development of Polymeric Nanoparticles of Natural Polyphenols for Improved Oral Delivery.” Tada’s coauthor and faculty mentor is Abhijit Date, assistant professor of pharmaceutical sciences.
• Joshua Turner: “Kilauea Lava Animal Rescue.” The coauthors include UH Hilo undergraduate Lemieux and faculty mentor Morrison.

UH Hilo students in the SHARP program receive faculty mentoring, paid research assistantships, and access to conferences and networking. UH Hilo students who have been part of this program have received admissions to advanced degree programs at such schools as Stanford University, the John A. Burns School of Medicine, and the University of California, Berkeley.

The UH Hilo SHARP program is currently funded through May 2021 at which time new NIH mandates will require 75 percent of staffing cost be provided by the university.

Story by Leah Sherwood, a graduate student in the tropical conservation biology and environmental science program at UH Hilo. She received her bachelor of science in biology and bachelor of arts in English from Boise State University. 

• The study was a collaboration of state agencies along with UH Hilo faculty and alumni now working in health and science fields.
• Findings: Staph and fecal indicator bacteria in Hilo Bay increase with rainfall and river discharge. Cloudy water is associated with higher bacteria concentrations, and high salinity with lower bacteria concentrations.

By Leah Sherwood.

A team of scientists from the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo has published a paper in the prestigious Journal of Environmental Quality on how rainfall-driven runoff increases concentrations of harmful bacteria in Hilo Bay.

The paper is titled, “Rainfall and Streamflow Effects on Estuarine Staphylococcus aureus and Fecal Indicator Bacteria Concentrations.” The authors are Louise Economy, an alumna of UH Hilo’s tropical conservation and environment science graduate program who is currently employed by the Hawai‘i Department of Health; Tracy Wiegner, professor of marine science at UH Hilo; Ayron Strauch, a hydrologist with the Department of Land and Natural Resources; Jonathan Awaya, professor of biology at UH Hilo; and Tyler Gerken, a UH Hilo alumnus who is currently a graduate research assistant at the University of Washington.

The scientists used culture-based methods to quantify the presence of Staphylococcus aureus (known informally as “staph”), methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (abbreviated MRSA), and fecal indicator bacteria (FIB) in Hilo Bay and in soils, sands, rivers, wastewater, and storm water within the Hilo watershed. These pathogen concentrations were then compared with rainfall and river discharge levels and water quality data. The results showed that staph and FIB concentrations increased with rainfall and river discharge. In terms of water quality, high turbidity (water cloudiness) was associated with higher bacteria concentrations, and high salinity with lower bacteria concentrations.

The project is based on Economy’s undergraduate and graduate work at UH Hilo, supervised by Wiegner, as well as work done by Gerken, also supervised by Wiegner, while he was at UH Hilo earning his baccalaureate degree in environmental science.

“Staph is an opportunistic pathogenic bacterium, meaning that given the right conditions it can cause disease,” explains Economy. “It can invade wounds and cause boils, rashes, and even flesh-eating disease. These infections are becoming more and more common in the community and affecting people who were previously healthy.”

Wiegner notes that Hawai‘i has the highest level of community acquired staph infections in the country. “It’s two times the rate of the rest of the U.S.,” she says. “That may be because it’s warmer here or because people are in the water more.”

Traditionally, scientists focused on the transmission of bacterial pathogens to the water from the skin of recreational water users. “Two out of five people have staph on their skin at any given time,” explains Economy. “These people can be carriers without getting infected. However, our work showed that staph and MRSA can persist on land, and can be moved into our ocean waters through mauka to makai connections driven by rainfall.”

Swimmers beware

The scientists hope their work can be used to predict water quality conditions based on rainfall patterns and to help assess the health risks faced by swimmers, surfers, and other recreational water users in Hilo Bay. “We are trying to develop real-time models using the water quality buoys, river discharge gauges, and rainfall data to be able to make real time predictions,” says Wiegner. “The idea is that you could look at your phone and see what your risk is before going in the water.”

Until then, she advises swimmers and surfers to stay home after a heavy rainfall, since rainfall and turbidity are associated with higher pathogen concentrations. “A good rule of thumb for recreational water users is if the water is brown, turn around,” she says. “You don’t want to go in with open cuts, and if you do go in, you should always rinse off.”

Wiegner worries that climate change could make the potential risk higher. “What’s predicted by climate change is that the climate will be drier, but when we do have rain, it will be much more intense,” she says. “When you have dry periods followed by more intense rain events, you get higher pathogen concentrations.”

Funding

The project was funded through the Hau‘oli Mau Loa Foundation and the U.S. Geological Survey Pacific Islands Climate Adaptation Science Center (PI-CASC). PI-CASC contributed through the Manager Climate Corps, a program that focuses on supporting research teams comprised of UH Hilo faculty, students, agencies and community members to address the island’s climate adaptation challenges. Undergraduate student research was supported by the National Science Foundation through UH Hilo’s Pacific Internship Programs for Exploring Science (PIPES) and UH Mānoa’s Center for Microbial Oceanography, and by the National Institutes of Health through the Students of Hawai‘i Advanced Research Program (SHARP).

Related stories

Researchers Maya Munstermann and Matthew Knope hope the results of their innovative research will help conservationists and policy makers develop better strategies for protecting endangered species.

By Leah Sherwood.

A recent graduate of the tropical conservation biology and environmental science program at the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo is launching her career with an impressive portfolio of research data already collected in the field of species protection. Maya Munstermann and her thesis advisor Matthew Knope, an evolutionary ecologist specializing in speciation and extinction, along with colleagues at Stanford, Tufts, Swarthmore, and University of California Santa Barbara, are pioneering a new data-driven approach to assessing extinction risk that “zooms out” from the traditional focus on individual species to examine groups of species that are at risk based on their ecological traits.

The work is documented in Munstermann’s master’s thesis, titled “The global ecological signature of extinction risk in terrestrial vertebrates,” which she defended at UH Hilo in July 2019 (see full video of defense). She also presented the research at the International Congress for Conservation Biology in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in July 2019.

A new approach

The new approach in this research looks for global ecological “signatures” of extinction risk in terrestrial vertebrates by both generating and analyzing new and existing large data sets and identifying statistically significant associations between ecological traits and extinction risk.

For example, using ArcGIS, a geographic information system platform, to map the global distribution of more than 24,000 threatened terrestrial vertebrate species, Munstermann was able to demonstrate that species with smaller range sizes face a significantly elevated risk of extinction.

In addition to range size, Munstermann categorized each terrestrial species according to its ecological “mode of life,” which encompasses its habitat affinity, mode of locomotion, and mode of feeding. Of the 14 ecological traits Munstermann analyzed, she found that brachiating, scavenging, and aerial species currently face the greatest risk of extinction.

“Brachiating means using your arms to swing from branch to branch, which is a mode of locomotion associated with primates,” explains Munstermann. “Scavenging refers to species like vultures and other birds of prey who look for already-dead animal material on the ground to feed on. And the aerial species are mainly sea birds who spend the majority of their time in the air.”

Munstermann and Knope hope that the results will help conservationists and policy makers develop better strategies for targeting species for protection.

“The fact that these ecological traits are at elevated risk of extinction tells us something different than the traditional view of conservation, which focuses on a particular species of concern and tries to protect it,” says Knope. “This is a different lens on the biodiversity crisis. Maya’s work shows that there are entire ecological functions that are at risk of being lost. These species are providing particular ecological roles, and if these roles are at risk of being lost globally, that’s something we need to know so that it can hopefully be addressed.”

As an example of an important ecological service at risk of being lost, Munstermann cites the scavenging function of species such vultures.

“They make important contributions that we don’t often think about,” says Munstermann. “For example, when cattle die, the carcass lies there, and nobody’s coming by and cleaning it up. The vultures and other scavengers are the ones that eat those carcasses. It’s an extremely important ecological service in terms of disease dynamics and also for nutrient cycling later on.”

Knope agrees that the loss of scavenging species has important implications for ecosystem function.

“The California condor is a poster child species for conservation, but Maya’s work really highlights that it’s not just the condor, but scavenging species as a whole group that are at risk. This high level of endangerment of scavengers means that we may already be facing increases in disease transmission that can have negative impacts on other species, including our own.”

Help with collecting the data

Munstermann and Knope’s data-driven approach required a large database documenting the ecological traits of more than 25,000 terrestrial vertebrate species. Since no such database existed, Munstermann had to create it herself. Luckily, Knope was able to recommend strongly motivated undergraduate students who worked as directed research students with Munstermann and were instrumental to the success of the data collection process.

“Matt found these great undergraduate students in his biostatistics and evolution classes,” says Munstermann. “The students generally worked nine hours a week over the course of two years, categorizing each species’ ecological traits. We went through literally every single book on terrestrial vertebrate ecology in the UH Hilo library, book by book, species by species, and entered their habitat, locomotion, and feeding categories into a large spreadsheet.”

The undergraduate students from UH Hilo who contributed to the data collection effort were Melia Takakusagi, Lavin Uehara, Kamamaluwaiwai “Wai” Wichimai, Ashley Romero, Heaven Tharp, Erin Berg, and Nikola Rodriguez.

Another contributor to the data collection effort was Megan Nakomoto, a student from Waiakea High School who joined the project at age 15 with the encouragement of her science teacher, Whitney Aragaki (also a graduate of UH Hilo’s tropical conservation biology and environmental science program). With mentoring from Munstermann, Knope, and Aragaki, Nakamoto also pursued a side project based on the ecology of extinction risk of terrestrial mammals. After her project won top honors in a high school science competition on the island of Hawai‘i, Nakamoto flew to Honolulu to compete in the Pacific Symposium for Science and Sustainability, a statewide science competition for high school students.

Seeing the pedagogical value of Munstermann’s data, Knope decided to make it the centerpiece of his undergraduate evolution course (BIO 357). Students in last year’s class generated new data and used R, a computer programming environment that can be used for statistical analyses, to identify statistically significant associations between ecological traits and extinction risk in mammals and birds. In the final week of the class the students presented their findings at a research poster symposium. Knope’s pedagogical experiment in CURE (Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences) was successful and he and Munstermann are repeating the project in this year’s evolution classes.

Funding

Funding for Munstermann’s master’s research came mainly from a Centers of Research Excellence in Science and Technology (CREST) grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The CREST grant also funded Munstermann’s travel to the International Congress for Conservation Biology in Kuala Lumpur in July 2019. In July 2018 Munstermann also received an NSF LSAMP travel grant to attend and present her work at the annual conference of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia.

Collaborators

Collaborators on the research project from other institutions include Jonathan Payne from Stanford University, Noel Heim from Tufts University, Douglas McCauley from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Steve Wang from Swarthmore College. Munstermann, Knope, and their collaborators are currently in the process of preparing the research to be submitted for publication in an interdisciplinary scientific journal and Munstermann is applying to doctoral programs to continue her research at the nexus of ecology and conservation biology.