Hauʻoli Mau Loa Fellowship Program pledges continued support for budding conservationists
UH Hilo graduate student Kylle Roy says fellowship has helped her grow as a young woman scientist and gain knowledge to pursue her goal as a future Hawaiʻi conservation and environmental leader.
By Susan Enright/UH Hilo Stories.
The Hauʻoli Mau Loa Foundation has pledged a new commitment in support of graduate students at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo pursuing master’s degrees from the tropical conservation biology and environmental science (TCBES) program. The pledge is for three students entering the program in 2015 and three students entering in 2016. The support is for the two years of the students’ master’s program.
“Hauʻoli Mau Loa Foundation’s continued support is largely due to Dr. Price and his team’s great work with the TCBES students,” says Jung Song, director of corporate and foundation relations at the UH Foundation. “Many thanks for all the work that UH Hilo and TCBES are doing to develop these students into future leaders in the conservation field.” Song is referring to the leadership of Don Price, chair of UH Hilo’s tropical conservation biology and environmental science graduate program.
Fellowship Success Stories
Kylle Roy is a current fellow in the program, pursuing her dreams to become a future Hawaiʻi conservation and environmental leader. For her thesis project she’s using genetic and other ecological techniques to reveal the diet of the endemic Carbid beetle found in mountain forests across Hawaiʻi Island. These beetles have disappeared on some islands due to human impact, and she hopes to pave the way for the use of this genus as bioindicators of forest health.
She describes her project as being large and costly. But this budding researcher is able to pursue her inquiry through the support Hauʻoli Mau Loa Foundation, an organization dedicated to giving a boost to young scientists addressing depletion of the world’s environment.
“Words could not express how grateful I am for being a Hauʻoli Mau Loa Fellowship recipient,” says Roy. “Because of the program I was able to enroll as a master’s student and focus on my studies. This year has been incredible, as I have taken 17 credits, developed my thesis project, spent a lot of time in the field, attended two conferences, and even found time to do a little volunteering.”
Roy says the funding has allowed her to purchase many necessities for her large field and lab-based project.
“I spend nights camping at remote sites in the often rainy and cold mountains at high elevation and have been blessed with the funds to purchase items such as a GPS, tent, waterproof shoes, and a proper rain jacket,” she says. “In the lab I have been able to purchase collecting and genetics materials, which are all very costly. I have no idea how my project would be at all possible without funding.”
Roy received her bachelor of science in biology with a minor in environmental science from Chapman University, California. Her research work as an undergraduate impressed Professor of Biology Don Price, who researches the genetics of Hawaiian native species and is chair of UH Hilo’s tropical conservation biology and environmental science graduate program. He accepted Roy into his research group, which is aligned with a large collaborate research grant program funded through the National Science Foundation.
“I invited Kylle to participate in this grant program and she has taken to this project with great enthusiasm by assisting a post-doctoral research associate, Dr. Curtis Ewing, in the field collections and laboratory identification of the arthropods,” says Price.
In addition to her work with the research team, Price says for Roy’s thesis project on Carbid beetles, she will be examining the importance of a predatory species in the group of insects and the impact that it has on the diversity of prey species in several locations.
“She will be conducting both next generation sequencing techniques using the Ion Torrent instrument in the Hilo Core Genomics Facility at UH Hilo and stable isotope technique to determine the changes in prey species consumed by the Carbid beetles in different ecosystems on Hawaiʻi and Maui islands,” says Price.
Roy has already presented her preliminary research at the Island Biology meeting that was held at UH Mānoa in July. Price says her work was very well received and she was able to interact with leaders in the field at the meeting.
“Her research this next year will be to fully develop the next generation and the stable isotope techniques to determine the insects in the diet of the beetles,” says Price.
Throughout the year Roy also finds time to do weekend volunteer work. She helped out with the Mauna Kea Watershed Partnership outplanting and seed collecting. She volunteered with the UH Hilo agriculture club pulling weeds and outplanting in Waipiʻo Valley. She helped design an outreach booth for the Hawaiʻi County Fair.
Roy says all her study, research and outreach efforts are made possible because of the Hauʻoli Mau Loa Fellowship Program.
“As a Hawaiian, born and raised in Hawaiʻi, I know how grateful the land and the people are of the much needed financial conservation efforts,” she says. “This fellowship has really allowed me to explore my career options, providing countless opportunities for networking. I feel this fellowship has brought me much closer to my dream career in management for a profit or non-profit organization. I have personally been able to grow as a young woman scientist, and have gained much knowledge to pursue my goal as a future Hawaiʻi conservation and environmental leader.”
Other current fellows in the Hauʻoli Mau Loa Fellowship Program
Karma Kissinger has completed all the course work required and obtained all corresponding credits required for graduation from the Tropical Conservation Biology and Environmental Science graduate program. She completed one feeding experiment using plant and microalgae ingredients to produce native marine fish by aquaculture. She presented the results of her research in the Aquaculture America conference held in Seattle in February this year. She was awarded for the best student oral presentation during the plenary session of the conference. She completed a directed studies course with the USDA Agriculture Research Service in Hilo. She is currently finishing the writing of her thesis and preparing one manuscript to be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal. She plans to graduate in December 2014.
Angela Beck recently completed the first year of the program and is making excellent progress. She is actively engaged as a student representative for the Tropical Conservation Biology and Environmental Sciences program, serving as treasurer of the program’s student club and organizer for a large number of events, notably the annual Tropical Conservation Biology and Environmental Sciences Research Symposium for both undergraduate and graduate students and the conservation community at large. She is making excellent progress with her thesis research investigating the high diversity of ʻapapane (Himatione sanguinea) birdsong on Hawaiʻi Island, and the way that songs change, on an individual and population level, across time and geographic scales. She began collecting data early in the summer, and quite possibly may already have enough data to answer her primary thesis questions.
Christopher Yakym received his bachelor of science in biology from UH Hilo where he was an undergraduate research assistant working on the same project that he is now continuing for his master’s thesis. As an undergraduate, he initiated his novel research project on the microbiome of the native Hawaiian Drosophila and their host plants for two species of Hawaiian Drosophila. For his master’s thesis, he is now expanding to incorporate next generation DNA sequencing using the Ion Torrent instrument in the Hilo Core Genomics Facility at UH Hilo. His research will be the first to examine the microbiome (bacteria and yeast) in both specific species of Hawaiian Drosophila and their host-plants. He plans to determine if there are unique yeasts or bacteria that are key microorganism that allow for the tight association between the insect and the plant.
Asa Aue has successfully completed and defended his master’s thesis. His research involved mapping and documenting the biodiversity of Hawaiʻi’s unique cave ecosystems. This broke new ground by elucidating clear patterns with respect to the area of habitat and its relationship to numbers of species and evolutionary lineages. He presented his findings at the first International Island Biology conference, and it was very well received, particularly among colleagues from islands in the Atlantic with similar cave ecosystems. The findings will be useful to preserving these unique environments. Aue ultimately intends to pursue a doctor of philosophy degree after publishing the results of his master’s thesis.
Timothy Sullivan’s thesis is focused on invasive-plant management, specifically in regard to how land managers can enact the best management strategies. He is focusing on understanding the nature of the expansion of a new invasive tree, Rauvolfia vomitoria, and developing an effective field protocol to best answer his core questions. He hopes to create a set of simple field experiments and observational practices which can garner critical biological data for an invasive plant of interest. He’s working closely with conservationists in the Kohala Watershed Partnership and hopes his thesis can act as an example of how to integrate Hawaiʻi’s various conservation communities towards feasible and critical environmental projects.
Story by Susan Enright, a public information specialist for the Office of the Chancellor and editor of UH Hilo Stories. She received her bachelor of arts in English and certificate in women’s studies from UH Hilo.
