PBRC professor selected as Underground Explorer for endangered Hawaiian dryland forest research

Nicole Hynson (left), collaborators and student on Lāna‘i for field work. Credit: Nicole Hynson.

The Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN) recently selected Nicole Hynson, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa professor, as a new Underground Explorer, supporting her research on the subterranean fungal network in one of the world’s most endangered tropical ecosystems, native Hawaiian dryland forests.

Nearly all plants on Earth form a symbiosis with mycorrhizal fungi, a group of network-forming soil fungi. These fungal networks connect plants underground, can distribute vital nutrients across ecosystems, and may even enable signaling between neighboring plants. Through the Underground Explorers Program, Hynson will collaborate with researchers and local communities around the world to map mycorrhizal fungal networks in their home ecosystems. 

“Hawai‘i in general is considered the ‘endangered species capital of the world’ yet we have a minimal understanding of the mycorrhizal fungal communities of the Islands, which likely face similar threats to their survival as endangered macroorganisms such as plants, birds and insects,” said Hynson, who is based at the Pacific Biosciences Research Center in the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology and is the director of the Center for Microbiome Analysis through Island Knowledge and Investigation. “Furthermore, the successful restoration of threatened ecosystems such as native Hawaiian dryland forests is likely contingent upon preserving and restoring mycorrhizal fungal communities that are adapted to, and have coevolved with native and endemic host plants.”

With SPUN support, Hyson will assess fungal communities from the healthiest and most intact native Hawaiian dryland forests and those that are in a degraded state. She and her research team will also test whether inoculation with fungi cultivated from healthy dryland forests will significantly boost the health and survivorship of native host plants grown in captivity for the restoration of degraded areas. 

“Importantly, this project will provide guidelines to greenhouse and land managers on how to incorporate mycorrhizal fungi into restoration practices throughout Hawai‘i,” said Hynson. Additionally, this project will assess how habitat degradation is affecting fungal communities and identify specific sites to prioritize for conservation based on the diversity and uniqueness of their mycorrhizal fungal communities—a strategy that despite interest from land management agencies has yet to be incorporated into Hawaiian conservation practices.”

In addition to the research on Hawaiian dryland forests, Hynson has been collaborating with SPUN on their project on Palmyra Atoll, where an international team of researchers, along with The Nature Conservancy and US Fish and Wildlife, are assessing the complex dependencies among marine and terrestrial organisms that may be driving nutrient cycles across the isolated atoll. The team is investigating how fungi cycle nutrients to the atoll’s trees and how mycorrhizal fungi may be key in restoring these remote rainforest ecosystems.