UH Hilo Center for Maunakea Stewardship - Research Library

A landscape perspective of the Hawaiian rain forest dieback

Author:
Akashi, Yoshiko, Mueller-Dombois, Dieter
Title:
A landscape perspective of the Hawaiian rain forest dieback
Periodical:
Journal of Vegetation Science
Year:
1995
Volume:
6
Pages:
449-464
Subject:
Ohia-lehua diseases and pests Ohia dieback Metrosideros polymorpha
Summary:
Due to a rapid decline and canopy dieback in the Metrosideros polymorpha, (the endemic ohia lehua tree), that dominated the rain forest of Hawaii throughout the 1960s and 1970s, a complete demise of the native forest was predicted for the early 1990s. Searches for a climatic cause, volcanic fuming or air pollution, or pest organism, failed to explain the dieback and a photographic analysis covering the windward slopes of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa that was done in 1954, 1965, and 1972, led scientists to believe that this was due to an alien disease. Fortunately, both the prediction and the belief that an alien disease was the cause of the dieback proved to be wrong. As a result, the development of dieback patterns across the rain forest of Hawaii was analyzed over a 23-year period in an effort to understand why some mature trees lose vigor and die earlier than others in the forest, the direction in which the dieback symptoms are likely to spread across a forest landscape, and how extensively a forest can lose the canopy at each dieback event.
Label:
Botany - Ohia
URL:
http://cletus.uhh.hawaii.edu:2074/10.2307/3236343
Date:
1995
Collection:
Periodicals