This editorial by SOEST interim Dean Chip Fletcher was posted in The Hill on June 6, 2022.

Carbon dioxide, measured in Hawaii at the Mauna Loa observatory, reached 420 parts per million in May. This is a 50 percent increase above pre-industrial levels, the highest in human history — and the highest since the Pliocene Climatic Optimum over 4 million years ago. We should take note of conditions during the Pliocene: global temperatures averaged 7 degrees Fahrenheit higher (3.9 degrees Celsius) than pre-industrial times and sea level was dozens of feet above present.

But the drive to renewable energy is solving this problem — right? Not yet.

Pledges made by countries to limit emissions over the long term could keep warming to less than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) above pre-industrial temperatures. This is good news, and coupled with analysis that in 2021 wind and solar generated over 10 percent of global electricity (for the first time), is cause for optimism. However, since we began measuring carbon dioxide 60 years ago, the annual growth rate has more than doubled, fossil fuels still account for more than 80 percent of global energy production. Meanwhile, current energy policies (on-the-ground government commitments) put us on track to warm more than 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit (around 2.6 degrees Celsius, with a range of 2  degrees Celsius to 3.7  degrees Celsius) before the end of this century. This is a level of severe and dangerous global heating that can only be avoided with a massive rollout of carbon dioxide removal technology and large-scale reforestation that is nowhere in evidence today.

Additionally, these projections do not account for greenhouse gas under-reporting (by 23 percent), growing instability of carbon storage by tropical forests and Arctic tundra and the approaching specter of a temperature tipping point to land-based photosynthesis. Evidence shows that 83 percent of forest carbon loss results from agriculture, suggesting that strategies to reduce forest loss are not successful, and that amplified carbon losses from deforestation are undercounted in Earth system models.

With warming of 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius), well within the range of current policies, models project that potentially one-third of humanity could be displaced by unlivable conditions. According to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), even under current levels of warming 3.5 billion people are highly vulnerable to climate impacts and half the world’s population suffers severe water shortages at some point each year.

Today, one in three people are exposed to deadly heat stress (projected to increase to 50 to 75 percent by the end of the century), serious flooding threatens an additional 500,000 people, and up to 1 billion people living on coasts will be exposed to sea level rise-related flooding by 2050. The changing climate drives the spread of diseases in people, crops, livestock and wildlife. Even if warming is held below 2.9 degrees Fahrenheit (1.6 degrees Celsius) by 2100, 8 percent of today’s farmland will be unfit for food production. By 2050, declining food production and nutrient losses are projected to cause severe stunting affecting 1 million children in Africa alone, and 183 million additional people to go hungry.

Avoiding a hot and diseased future characterized by poverty, misery and famine requires strong and sustained action on multiple fronts. Limiting warming to around 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) requires that greenhouse gas emissions peak before 2025, and are reduced 43 percent by 2030. Major transitions in the energy sector, already underway, must dramatically accelerate in only a few years. Fossil fuel use must be rapidly reduced with an eye to total elimination by mid-century. Safeguarding and strengthening nature is critical to securing a livable future. Today, roughly 17 percent of land and inland waters, and 10 percent of oceans are in protected status. A resilient natural world requires setting into conservation 30 to 50 percent of Earth’s land, freshwater and oceans. Adapting to the climate crisis means that developed nations in North America, Europe and elsewhere must invest in under-developed communities and resolve inequities based on gender, ethnicity, location and income.

The science is clear, the solutions exist, the future of the human community on Earth is embedded in the decisions we make today.

–Chip Fletcher is the author of “Climate Change: What the Science Tells Us,” 2nd Edition, a textbook on climate change published by Wiley.

The ARCS Foundation Honolulu Chapter selected four University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science graduate students to receive ARCS Scholarships. At the 2022 ARCS Scholars Banquet this month the foundation provided $5,000 awards to 20 University of Hawai‘i at Manoa doctoral candidates who were named ARCS Scholars. The non-profit volunteer group works to advance science in America by providing unrestricted funding to outstanding U.S. graduate students in STEM fields. The Honolulu chapter has provided more than $2.7 million to UH more than 650 graduate students since 1974.

The four 2022 Honolulu ARCS Scholars from the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology are listed below. For more information about each scholar, including links to videos in which they describe their research, visit the ARCS Foundation 2022 Scholars page.

Marley Chertok, Department of Earth Sciences, Toby Lee ARCS Award, uses remote sensing techniques to look at impact craters on the lunar surface in order to learn what they reveal about hidden ancient interior lava flows. She previously worked on a geologic history of Northwestern Zambia to assist with an environmental impact study related to refugee resettlement. Her advisor, University of Hawai‘i Planetary Scientist Paul Lucey, was a 1987 Honolulu ARCS Scholar.
View Marley’s video

Terrence J. “TJ” Corrigan, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, George and Mona Elmore ARCS Award, is a storm chaser. He will aim Stereo Atmospheric Motion Monitor cameras at the Ko‘olau range to gauge the interplay of wind and topography. His goal is to predict when simple tradewind showers will evolve into severe rotating thunderstorms, such as the 2018 supercell thunderstorm over Kaua‘i that shattered previous 24-hour U.S. rainfall records.
View TJ’s video

Shannon McClish, Department of Oceanography, George and Mona Elmore ARCS Award, studies the impact of seasonal changes in Antarctic Sea ice on nutrient and carbon dioxide uptake and release by phytoplankton. Robotic floats let her collect data during periods when ship-based sampling isn’t possible. She hopes to work at the intersection of science research and policy.
View Shannon’s video

Sarah Tucker, Marine Biology (joint Natural Sciences/SOEST program), George and Mona Elmore ARCS Award, has demonstrated an uncanny ability to grow a ubiquitous group of bacteria called SAR11 in the laboratory. Using bacteria grown in the lab and collected in Kane‘ohe Bay, she is unravel the metabolic pathways at work in this important but little understood player in global carbon cycles.
View Sarah’s video

Nicholas Hawco, SOEST assistant professor of oceanography, was selected to receive a Simons Early Career Investigator Award in Marine Microbial Ecology and Evolution. This three-year award comes with more than $660,000 in research funding. The purpose of this award is to help launch the careers of outstanding investigators in the field of marine microbial ecology and evolution who will advance our understanding through experiments, modeling or theory.

Microbes inhabit and sustain all habitats on Earth. In the oceans, microbes capture solar energy, catalyze biogeochemical transformations of important elements, produce and consume greenhouse gases, and provide the base of the food web.

Hawco’s research examines how essential but scarce metals like iron, cobalt, manganese and zinc influence the evolution and productivity of marine ecosystems. He uses a range of approaches—from global scale oceanographic surveys to detailed laboratory experiments with phytoplankton isolates—to investigate the trade-offs that emerge as marine microorganisms adapt to minimize their dependence on limiting resources while maximizing the metabolic advantages conferred by these elements via metalloenzymes.

“The goal of the upcoming project is to develop indicators for phytoplankton health at the base of the marine food web,” said Hawco. “These work the same way as the bloodwork diagnostics you might get when you go to the doctor for a check-up. For instance, one of the main goals is to measure the protein ferritin, which is a way that organisms have evolved to store iron. Ferritin is also measured in humans as a way to diagnose the early signs of iron deficiency, a condition that all life, phytoplankton included, is vulnerable to.”

Hawco will do the same type of check-up on the phytoplankton in the open ocean, who live thousands of miles from their principal iron sources on land.

“One of the big questions we’ve been pursuing is whether human industrial activities in East Asia have been adding to the natural iron supply delivered to the Pacific Ocean,” said Hawco. “This natural supply is chiefly from dust storms in Asian deserts, like the Gobi desert, being blown out to sea. As these iron-rich dust particles mix with urban and industrial pollution, the iron can dissolve more easily and should increase the supply to phytoplankton.”

By measuring phytoplankton ferritin, Hawco can see how much this additional iron supply may be changing their nutritional status, which could affect other organisms in marine food webs that depend on phytoplankton.

“It’s amazing to have the support of the Simons Foundation to grow our knowledge of how the oceans are able to sustain such vibrant ecosystems with such a small amount of resources,” said Hawco. “Beyond being an inspiration for how our own societies may become more sustainable, we need to know how marine ecosystems respond to changes in resource supply to see what our future oceans will look like as the effects of climate change mount.”

Two University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa faculty members, atmospheric scientist Bin Wang and oceanographer David Karl, were named in the top 25 researchers internationally according to the recent Research.com ranking. Based on a meticulous examination of 166,880 scientists on Google Scholar and Microsoft Academic Graph, the rankings report on the impact of research published by scientists in 21 disciplines.

Wang and Karl were ranked among over 9,198 profiles in the Environmental Sciences discipline–placing them in the top 0.2% of researchers worldwide.

“These two world class scientists exemplify not only excellence in research and the search for truth, but also a thoughtful, caring, and nurturing attitude toward their students and colleagues,” said Chip Fletcher, interim dean of the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology. “Bin and Dave are known far and wide as outstanding teachers and mentors who express a genuine kindness, a holistic love for our Earthly home, and a deep concern for the future of humanity. We are indeed blessed to know them as friends and collaborators.”

Bin Wang

Wang, ranked 13 internationally and 7 in the nation, is an emeritus professor who has been with the Department of Atmospheric Sciences (formerly Department of Meteorology) at UH Mānoa  since 1987. He is a leading meteorologist specializing in climate and atmospheric dynamics. Among his research interests are variability and predictability of Asian-Australian monsoons, climate predictions, tropical cyclones and El Niño – Southern Oscillation dynamics. The ranking reported that Wang’s publications have more than 63,000 citations. Active in the science community, he has organized numerous international workshops and conferences and has been serving on scientific advisory committees in his field. Wang is among the most influential scientists in monsoon research worldwide and in development of meteorological sciences and climate predictions in Asian-Pacific region.

David Karl

Karl, ranked 25 in the world and 13 nationally, is the Victor and Peggy Brandstrom Pavel Professor of Microbial Oceanography and Director of the Daniel K. Inouye Center for Microbial Oceanography: Research and Education (C-MORE). As a microbial oceanographer, he has studied the distribution and metabolic activities of microorganisms at various sites in the global ocean from the equator to both poles and from the surface to the greatest ocean depths. In 1988, he co-founded the Hawaii Ocean Time-series program as a sentinel for observing the effects of climate on the structure and function of microbial communities. He has spent more than 1,000 days conducting research at sea including 23 expeditions to Antarctica. Karl’s research has centered around the ocean’s carbon cycle from photosynthetic production of organic matter to carbon sequestration in the deep sea. A member of the National Academy of Sciences, Karl’s publications continue to advance the field of microbial ecology and collectively have more than 53,000 citations, according to the new ranking report.  

Read also on UH News.

The National Science Foundation has awarded the University of Hawaiʻi’s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (Hawaiʻi EPSCoR) a five-year $20-million grant to fund research and capacity building in support of actionable climate science through a collaboration called Change HI.

Hawaiʻi faces unique challenges as climate change impacts resource availability, ecological sustainability, economic vitality and human health in the islands. To help the state face the critical issues brought on by climate change, this multidisciplinary research effort will integrate expertise in climate and data science to enhance fundamental knowledge and develop new climate models, data products and tools.

As a collaborative program with multiple partners inside and outside the UH System, Change HI will advance education and workforce readiness in these areas for Hawaiʻi and help build a new data-driven knowledge economy statewide, targeting the growth of computer and data science that can be applied in critical areas of state need and growth. Within SOEST, Rosie Alegado with Oceanography, C-MORE and Hawaiʻi Sea Grant; Mahdi Belcaid with HIMB; and Alison Nugent and Giuseppe Torri in Atmospheric Sciences will contribute to this effort.

“Change HI represents an amazing opportunity for us to advance even further one of our globally distinctive strengths, climate change and resilience,” said UH President David Lassner. “At the same time we will continue to build fundamental capacity in Hawaiʻi in data science, which is increasingly vital across the full spectrum of inquiry and activity in academia, business and government.”

Integrated climate and data science research

Change HI research comprises eight data and climate science-focused projects. The team of researchers will work in areas of climate downscaling, numerical modeling sensitivity studies, functional trait analysis, carbon sequestration, cloud water interception and soil moisture characterization. All areas of research will use a variety of advanced data science techniques such as computational simulations, data visualization, natural language processing, machine learning, artificial intelligence and statistical modeling.

“This exciting project brings together an outstanding team of scientists and educators and has enormous potential to address two critical challenges for our state—preparing for the impacts of climate change and building a resilient data driven economy,” said Information Technology Services Director of Cyberinfrastructure and Principal Investigator Gwen Jacobs.

In addition, Change HI will build research capacity through new data science faculty hires, developing and creating access to climate data and products and building immersive data analytics environments to aid in decision making.

Education and training programs

Change HI will support data science education and workforce development for the state through a variety of programs. These programs include graduate fellowships, summer undergraduate research experiences, internships and data science training and certification.

The focus of both science and education efforts of the Change HI collaboration are to increase the state’s climate resilience through leveraging climate and data science research and support diversification and growth of Hawaiʻi’s economy through data analytics.

“Change HI will deliver human and program infrastructure that supports critical education and workforce development initiatives to ensure Hawaiʻi has the highly skilled, data-ready workforce that will power our future economy,” said Garret Yoshimi, Information Technology Services vice president and chief information officer. “Broad-based training efforts under Change HI will also help to ensure opportunities for everyone in our community to strengthen our support for equity and inclusion in our STEM-powered future workforce.”

Participating organizations include: UH System, UH Mānoa, UH Hilo, Chaminade University, Island of Opportunity Pacific Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP), Hawaiʻi IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE), UH LGBTQ+ Center, UH Office of Innovation and Commercialization, Waianae Mountains Watershed Partnership, Hawaiʻi State Energy Office and Hawaiʻi Community Foundation.

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An insightful cross-disciplinary team of University of Hawai‘i (UH) at Mānoa researchers, working for over a decade, published a study recently revealing that a key number of hours of darkness during the lunar cycle triggers mature “Hawaiian box jellyfish” (Alatina alata) to swim to leeward O‘ahu shores to spawn.

Led by Angel Yanagihara, associate research professor at the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) and the John A. Burns School of Medicine, researchers at the UH at Mānoa have been carefully tracking local box jellies for over 20 years. While the monthly shoreline aggregations are understood to occur like clockwork 8-10 days after each full moon, with jelly forecasts included on the local news, mysteries have remained: Why are they appearing at this particular part of the lunar cycle? Where do these box jellies come from and where are they found the rest of the lunar cycle? Why has this become a monthly problem in only the last 30 years?

With the new study, the team provided in-depth answers based upon cutting-edge oceanographic approaches including nightlong off shore vessel tracking, computer modeling of local currents and side scan sonar, as well as fundamental field ecology methods and anatomical microscopy. 

The senior scientist team of Yanagihara and SOEST oceanography professor Margaret McManus conceived of and began this collaborative study ten years ago starting from monthly box jelly census data collected by the Yanagihara Lab from 1997 to the present. 

“We found that the dangerous monthly shoreline appearance of the Hawaiian Box Jellyfish, correlates with the specific nights of the lunar month—referred to as Kāloa in the Hawaiian calendar—with a critical number of hours of darkness after sunset and before moonrise,” said Yanagihara. “We also discovered that all the box jellies comprising the shoreline aggregation were actively spawning.”

Based on studies of thousands of beached box jellies, Yanagihara found that the gonads were all replete with gametes or freshly spent—meaning they were nearshore to reproduce.

“The period of the lunar cycle with a key number of hours of darkness or the ‘absence of light’ cues mature animals to specifically swim to the shore line to spawn,” said Yanagihara. “Further, as divers tracking the migration in the water, we faced a strong south easterly (Diamond Head) current that the box jellies swam successfully perpendicular to but, we divers with tanks and big cameras could not. Their swimming speed and power was impressive!”

With McManus’ oceanographic analysis, the researchers hypothesize that jellies are in the lee of Diamond Head Crater for the rest of the lunar cycle, benefitting from the shelter and food provided by the persistent eddy in the study area, which appears to be the “source point” for the jellyfish or where the box jellies come from.

The UH scientists are addressing issues of importance and concern to residents and tourists alike who enjoy Hawai‘i’s coastal waters as well as of great importance to other tropical islands with local populations of this same species Alatina alata. While there are over 40 species of box jellies world wide, Alatina alata is the only species that exhibits this clockwork lunar spawning migration behavior. The team also studied Alatina alata migrations in Saipan, CMNI and Puerto Rico and Key West, FL. This research revealed the unique life cycle involving specific shoreline bathymetry features which support persistent anticyclonic eddy features as well as the lunar trigger for spawning and will allow the team to further investigate other O‘ahu locations where box jellies have not been observed historically but have now become more common such as Pupukea and Kailua.

“This work is very important to the State in terms of planning and tourism as well as improved signage, public awareness and dissemination of evidence-based jellyfish sting care,” said Yanagihara.

In the future, the team hopes to continue these studies to model other offshore bay features adjacent to box jelly beaching events and to track population numbers which can become emerging public health concerns for ocean swimmers and beach goers.  Specifically, research efforts are being designed to inform and predict, as well as, to help guide policies to restore food web balance to keep box jelly numbers in check in Hawai‘i and other tropical localities where Alatina alata also represent a concern for beach goers.

Read also on Honolulu Civil Beat, UH News, Eurekalert and Science Daily.

A new book titled “Climate Variability and Tropical Cyclone Activity” written by SOEST professor of atmospheric sciences Pao-Shin Chu and Hiroyuki Murakami from the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory and published by Cambridge University Press is available starting today in the Americas and Asia.  

“As Earth warms, we anticipate to see extreme events become more frequent or more intense—meaning increasing hurricane rainfall, flooding and destructive winds; heat waves; drought and wildfires,” said Chu, who is also the Hawai‘i State Climatologist. “These events will undoubtedly impact communities around the world.”

Topics highlighted in the book include climate variability on various timescales; the effects of different climate modes, such as El Nino and the Pacific Meridional Mode, on the formation, intensity and track of tropical cyclones in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans; and predictions of tropical cyclones and how climate change will impact associated extreme typhoon rainfall.

This book is intended for use in graduate-level college courses. The material was successfully tested for classroom use during an experimental Atmospheric Sciences course in SOEST.

“Usually, scientists study climate or tropical cyclones separately but through this book, we tried to combine them so scientists from one side can learn what is happening on the other side and collectively we can improve our understanding of dangerous extreme weather events,” said Chu.  

Read also on UH News.

After a two year hiatus due to the pandemic, the popular “Be a Scientist” night, providing valuable STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education and activities for at-risk keiki and women, returned to the Institute for Human Services (IHS) on May 6.

The effort was led by the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s Department of Mathematics, in collaboration with the Hawaiʻi Pandemic Applied Modeling Work Group, UH’s Institute for Astronomy, UH Mānoa’s School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology Assistant Researcher Frances Zhu’s Lab, UH Mānoa’s Center on Disability Studies, the Hawaiʻi State Department of Education, and Oceanit.

Students, faculty and staff from the organizations taught approximately two dozen (smaller number than previous years due to COVID-19 safety protocols) children and women about mathematics, epidemiology modeling, robotics and astronomy through many different hands-on activities. Professor Monique Chyba has been working with IHS for more than 10 years on events like this and says that proper education for keiki is important, especially during COVID-19.

“The pandemic has been extremely difficult on many families and created an even bigger gap in education for the children without permanent housing and access to computers/internet,” Chyba said. “While this is only a one time event, we are continuously in touch with IHS to provide other resources when needed (such as tutoring or summer programs). It is also a great opportunity for UH to come together for our community.”

UH Mānoa undergraduate students Ionica Macadangdang (biological engineering major) and Ralph Martin Adra (astrophysics major) took the lead in organizing the event, with guidance from Chyba. Both students are also involved in the COVID-19 mathematics modeling team that has provided valuable insights about the prevalence of the virus within our communities.

“Being a part of ‘Be a Scientist’ night at IHS is always a fun and worthwhile experience,” Macadangdang said. “Especially after returning to IHS with such a big turnout of both participants and UH volunteers, you could really sense that everyone involved was eager to interact with the kids and other community members and get them excited about STEM. I’m certainly looking forward to seeing how this event will grow and continue to support our keiki!”

Adra added, “Planning this event was nonetheless difficult but worth it! Helping the keiki reminded me of how I first aspired to choose my major of astrophysics. Their bright eyes of passion and love towards science were the same ones I had back then, and this experience has really inspired me to keep going towards my goals in my future.”

Oceanit provided a catered dinner for the shelter’s population. In addition, UH Mānoa’s math department collected approximately $800 to purchase toiletries, which was donated to IHS.

“We are so grateful to UH Mānoa for putting together this amazing event for our families and women here at IHS. These past two years have been hard because we had to stop all events and classes that bring IHS together,” IHS Children’s Program Specialist Candice Moore said. “Seeing the smiles and excitement at this event is so heartwarming.”

Read more on UH News.

From UH News: The search has officially begun for the next dean of the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) in the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UHM).

SOEST is geographically advantaged with outstanding and unique access to deep oceans, land biomes, space resources and multiple knowledge systems, and features world-renowned faculty and staff. SOEST is globally recognized as a premier institution for research and education in geosciences and life sciences. Through an integration of research, education and diverse knowledge systems, SOEST works to transform the collective understanding of these islands, the world, and the way people live by fostering healthy and resilient communities and environments.

Denise Eby Konan, dean of the College of Social Sciences, is chairing the search advisory committee, whose members include a chair, faculty, staff and students from within SOEST and from other UH Mānoa units, as well as representatives from the Kualiʻi Council, and the industry community.

The committee will recommend finalists to UH Mānoa Provost Michael Bruno, who will then recommend a nominee to UH President David Lassner.

For the job announcement, position description and list of search advisory committee members, please visit the executive search website. Review of applications will begin in June 2022 and will continue until the position is filled.

Most bottom-dwelling marine invertebrate animals, such as sponges, corals, worms and oysters, produce tiny larvae that swim in the ocean prior to attaching to the seafloor and transforming into juveniles. A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and led by University of Hawai‘i (UH) at Mānoa researchers revealed that a large, complex molecule, called lipopolysaccharide, produced by bacteria is responsible for inducing larval marine tubeworms, Hydroides elegans, to settle to the seafloor and begin the complex processes of metamorphosis.

“This is a major milestone in understanding the factors that determine where larvae of bottom-living invertebrates settle and metamorphose,” said Michael Hadfield, senior author on the paper and emeritus professor in the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology. “It is the key to understanding how benthic communities are established and maintained on all surfaces under salt water, that is, on 71% of Earth’s surface.”

Most invertebrate larvae are capable of staying in the larval stage for extended periods of time until they find a right spot. In the study, led by Marnie Freckelton, a postdoctoral researcher at the Kewalo Marine Lab, a unit of the Pacific Biosciences Research Center (PBRC) in SOEST, the research team asked the question: how do ‘right spots’ cue larvae to settle and metamorphose?

Metamorphosis is a profound change in the animal’s form—from a small swimming larva to an animal with a very different anatomy anchored to the seafloor. Although researchers have known that biofilms, thin layers comprised of bacteria, diatoms and small algae that blanket submerged surfaces, induce metamorphosis of a wide range of marine invertebrate larvae, the mechanism of induction remained poorly understood.

In laboratory experiments with larval tubeworms, the team found that they would not settle on clean surfaces. They required a cue from a surface biofilm.

“The team isolated a single bacterial species, Cellulophaga lytica, that could, when formed into surface biofilm, induce the worm larvae to settle, and then we asked: what is it about that particular bacterium that causes the larvae to settle and metamorphose?” said Freckelton.

With a series of enzyme experiments, the researchers eliminated protein-based bacterial compounds as potential settlement inducers. From there, they investigated, one-by-one, various lipid-containing compounds and identified the trigger—lipopolysaccharide, which forms the outer coat of most marine bacteria.

They studied the biofilm-bacterial communities from many different habitats to learn what bacterial species were present and how they compared across communities. They discovered that, although thousands of bacterial species make up the biofilm in any given marine habitat, they vary significantly from one location to another.  

“In fact, we have different strains of the same bacterial species obtained from Kaneʻohe Bay and Pearl Harbor, and the Hydroides larvae settle only in response to the one from Pearl Harbor,” said Hadfield, who has been a researcher at the Kewalo Marine Lab in PBRC since 1968. “Furthermore, we found in our lab that larvae of the coral Pocillopora damicornis, which is abundant in Kaneʻohe Bay, will settle only in response to the Kaneʻohe Bay strain of the bacterium. This is a breakthrough, because it tells us about the specificity of certain bacteria that guide and maintain a community of animals where they occur.”

The recent discovery can aid in a number of immediate problems, such as coral-reef restoration; mariculture of clams, oysters, mussels and possibly shrimp and crabs; and biofouling, the accumulation of animals and algae on ship hulls that cost the world’s navies and shipping industry billions of dollars per year. 

“Hopefully, we can help these efforts by discovering the bacterial molecules—likely lipopolysaccharide—that guide the settlement of lab-reared coral in vulnerable reef areas or oyster larvae in places like Pearl Harbor to employ their filtering capacities to clear the waters, as has been done already in Chesapeake Bay,” said Hadfield. “Further, our research may contribute directly to the development of ship hull coatings that resist biofouling.”

Read also on UH News, Eurekalert, Science Daily, Big Island Now, Maui Now and Mirage News.