Maunakea Speaker Series to Focus on Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge

The public is welcome to the next Maunakea Speaker Series will be held on Thursday, April 4, 2019, starting at 7 p.m. at the UH Hilo Science and Technology Building room #108. This free evening presentation will be on the Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge forest regeneration.

Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge forest regeneration will be the subject of the next Maunakea Speaker series. Courtesy photo.

Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge

Starting nearly 30 years ago, managers at Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge planted over 400,000 Acacia koa (koa) trees in abandoned pastures to facilitate forest regeneration. Their goal was to restore native forests in order to increase native bird populations at an altitude where avian malaria is rare. While planted trees seem to grow well, there has been very little natural recruitment of native understory plants (e.g. pilo, ‘ōlapa). In this talk Dr. Rehm will discuss the various barriers that inhibit the development of native forests, hindering restoration efforts.

Dr. Evan Rehm

Dr. Evan Rehm earned his PhD from Florida International University and has worked in a variety of tropical systems including investigating climate change effects on montane forest in Peru, how an invasive snake has disrupted bird-plant interactions on Guam, the role habitat loss is playing in reducing bird populations in Puerto Rico, and mating systems of fairy-wrens in Australia. Dr. Rehm is currently a Post-doctoral Researcher with the University of California Santa Barbara but is based at the Institute for Pacific Island Forest in Hilo, Hawai’i. He is interested in how different drivers of global change (e.g. climate change, habitat loss, invasive species) have negative impacts of native plants and animals.

The Maunakea Speaker Series is free and open to the public. On-campus parking is open and available without charge after 4 p.m.