Recent breakthroughs in multiple fields of study now allow researchers to follow the entire life cycle of ocean fishes—from when and where they are spawned, to where they disperse and grow, to when and where they are captured, transported, and eaten.

A recently published study led by University of Hawai‘i (UH) at Mānoa researchers brought together experts from the fields of oceanography, genetics, ecology, fisheries biology, and social sciences to develop unprecedented insights into the natural and commercial flow of fish.

“We believe that Fish Flow analyses will promote sustainable fisheries management and marine conservation efforts, and may foster public knowledge, wise seafood choices, and appreciation of social–ecological interconnections involving fisheries,” said Mark Hixon, lead author of the study and professor and Hsiao Endowed Chair of Marine Biology at the UH Mānoa School of Life Sciences.

Most ocean species that are exploited by humans live in “stocks,” or groups of isolated local populations, which have proven difficult to delineate and study.

Hixon and co-authors from the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) and Conservation International combined their expertise and applied recent breakthroughs in their respective fields to develop the first Fish Flow map on the Island of Hawai‘i.

Their findings indicate that the northern and southern portions of the island are intricately linked by larval dispersal and catch distribution, a discovery that highlights the importance of an inclusive approach to management and conservation of coral reefs in the region. 

“From a fisheries management perspective, our work shows that the resource base for these fisheries is vital for the food security of local communities, which further emphasizes the importance of community-based fishery management,” said Jack Kittinger, study co-author and director of Conservation International’s Global Fisheries and Aquaculture program.

At the frontiers of five disciplines

Researchers specializing in oceanography, genetics, ecology, fisheries biology, and social sciences, each working at the frontier of their respective disciples, were needed for this study. 

For example, SOEST oceanographers rely on cutting-edge computer models that take into account biological and physical factors in ever higher resolution, allowing researchers to predict patterns of larval dispersal. Additionally, using advanced genomic techniques, tiny tissue samples from fish now reveal the spawning and settlement locations of adult fish and their offspring.

“The development of Fish Flow maps will better inform consumers and assist resource managers in linking fisheries and conservation policies with natural borders and pathways, including stock boundaries, networks of marine protected areas, and fisheries management areas,” said Hixon.

“These Fish Flow maps will help to ensure that everyone – from local community members to resource managers and policy makers – understand and appreciate how clearly connected and dependent humans are on seafood produced in various, and sometimes very distant, regions of the ocean,” added  Kittinger.

The researchers aim to secure funding for a full Fish Flow analysis of the ecologically and economically important fish species in Hawai‘i. That effort is envisioned to culminate in web-based, interactive “Fish Flow” maps depicting the many connections and interdependencies between marine ecosystems and human communities.

Study co-authors include Mark A Hixon, Brian W Bowen, HIMB postdoctoral researcher Richard R Coleman, Chelsie W Counsell, Megan J Donahue, Erik C Franklin, John N Kittinger, Margaret A McManus and Robert J Toonen.  Funding for this study was provided by the Harold K.L. Castle Foundation.

Read also on Big Island Video News, Science Daily, SciTechDaily, Eurekalert, UH News, Gilmore Health News and KHON2.

Native marine macroalgae, also known as limu, or as seaweed, thrive in environments created by natural groundwater seeps, specifically benefiting from the combined effects of enhanced  nutrients despite lowered salinity levels, according to a minireview published recently by a team of University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa researchers. Conversely, in areas where the seeping groundwater is tainted by excess nitrogen typical of wastewater, the study found it is invasive species that typically flourish in Hawaiʻi.

Native macroalgae studied here demonstrate faster growth and photosynthesis rates in regimes of natural leakage of groundwater along coastlines, also termed submarine groundwater discharge. But numerous studies have shown that the composition and amount of submarine groundwater discharge have been greatly affected by humans.

Human disturbed watersheds, particularly those with urban development and conventional agriculture, show a common theme of problems. Not just in Hawaiʻi but across the Pacific Islands, wastewater management can be a challenge, with tens of thousands of cesspools still in operation. Especially those along the shoreline are subject to subsurface inundation—readily delivering excess nitrogen and other contaminants to the coastline. Downstream of these areas, submarine groundwater discharge can be polluted by wastewater, agricultural fertilizer inputs and even common-use pharmaceuticals and pesticides.

To investigate the relationship between groundwater input and algal species in an area off southeast O‘ahu, Hawai‘i, the research team used a variety of methods. In the field, they relied on thermal infrared imagery of the coastline and naturally occurring chemical tracers to assess groundwater seepage; and documented the abundance of native and invasive algal species. In the lab, they measured the growth response of various species of algae to conditions that simulated varying compositions of submarine groundwater.

Their results point to the critical importance of sound land, water, and wastewater management policies and practices.

“There are multiple ways to improve the situation and prevent further deterioration of submarine groundwater discharge,” said Henrietta Dulai, lead author of the study and professor of Earth Sciences at the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology. “Recharge can be improved by land-use choices through having more permeable urban surfaces and by restoring native forests. Lower groundwater withdrawal rates can be achieved by better management of water resources and water re-use. Additionally, upgrades to our wastewater infrastructure in light of impending sea level rise should be one of the primary goals.”

Efforts to remove land-based sources of wastewater from SGD are likely to benefit our communities in short and long-term ways. In the short term, shallow reefs are likely to return to overall healthier water qualities in these now impacted coastal regions. In a longer term, regrowth of native, not invasive algae, in those same regions is likely.

“The bottom line is if we want to sustain native macroalgae, we need to preserve submarine groundwater discharge flow and keep associated nutrient loads in check,” said Celia Smith, study co-author, Botany professor at UH Mānoa School of Life Sciences, and Co-Director of the Marine Biology Graduate Program.  “Keeping the discharged groundwater as close to pristine as possible needs to be a goal. Otherwise, we risk setting the stage for persistent, multi-year invasive algal dominance.”

With future studies, the team aims to determine the responses by native and invasive algae to the full range of groundwater discharge—pristine to tainted—to inform biocontrol efforts that outplant native algae, as well as gain insight into sea level rise impacts on these plants.

Additional study co-authors are V. Gibson and D. Amato from UH Mānoa Botany and L. Bremer from UHERO.

Read also on Hawaii Public Radio, Maui Now, Spectrum News, Eurekalert, UH News, Eurasian Review and Water Quality Products.

Today, the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) announced a seven-year $50 million commitment from Dr. Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg, which will support  various research groups within Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB). HIMB will leverage this gift to make meaningful progress in restoring Hawaiʻi’s ocean health.

This gift will fund research and programs that document changing ocean conditions, explore solutions to support healthier ocean ecosystems, enhance coastal resilience from storms and sea-level rise, and tackle challenges to marine organisms ranging from the tiniest corals to the largest predators.

University of Hawai‘i (UH) President David Lassner said, “This transformative gift will enable our world-class experts to accelerate conservation research for the benefit of Hawaiʻi and the world.” Lassner continued, “The ocean ecosystems that evolved over eons now face unprecedented threats from our growing human population and our behaviors. It is critical that we learn from previous generations who carefully balanced resource use and conservation. The clock is ticking, and we must fast-track not only our understanding of marine ecosystems and the impacts of climate change, but the actions we must take to reverse the devastation underway. There is no place on Earth better than Hawai‘i to do this work, and no institution better able than UH.  We could not be more grateful for the investment of Dr. Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg in a better future for all of us and our planet.”

Hawai‘i is home to a rich diversity of marine life, including many threatened and endangered species. The accelerated pace of climate change and ocean acidification has altered environmental conditions faster than expected. Many species have difficulty adapting to the rapid changes taking place in the oceans and scientists see growing impacts to marine ecosystems.

The gift funds research on the impact of climate change on Hawaiian coastal waters, including areas of particular concern or natural refuges from ocean acidification effects. It will also support  research  on methods for more accurate forecasting of future ocean conditions, as well as efforts to study marine organisms like coral reefs, sharks, and other species.   

“Hawaiʻi has one of the richest marine ecosystems in the world — and having a deeper understanding of this ecosystem is the key to preserving and protecting it,” said Mark Zuckerberg and Dr. Priscilla Chan. “We’re honored to support the University of Hawaiʻi’s conservation efforts, including their trailblazing research on coral reef restoration, the impact of climate change on coastal waters, and other areas related to the health of our oceans.”

The seven-year commitment funds research that supports healthier, more climate change-resilient coral reef ecosystems. For example, scaling up strategies for coral reef restoration. It also leverages efforts to grow community partnerships and support Indigenous resource management practices. Further, it supports training for the next generation of coral scientists and ocean conservationists.

Interim SOEST Dean Chip Fletcher points out, “In addition to the research funded through this gift, we will improve support for local students in overcoming obstacles to higher education. Through internships, mentoring, community engagement efforts and graduate research fellowships we will grow our pool of scholars, policymakers, and conservationists from underrepresented communities around our state.”

The School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa is a world-class research and academic institution focused on informing solutions to some of the world’s most challenging problems. Through an integrated, comprehensive, and sustained system of Earth and planetary observations, research, and education, SOEST staff work to transform the way people live on Earth by enabling a healthy public, economy, and planet. This gift also funds critical efforts to inform the public, policy makers and resource managers of ocean acidification and warming vulnerabilities.

Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology Director Eleanor Sterling added, “This generous gift is a wonderful opportunity to support the much-needed interdisciplinary work that will help us to better understand ocean systems and Indigenous management strategies and to develop effective approaches for ocean conservation. We aim to make significant strides toward ensuring healthy, diverse oceans as well as meeting the needs of local communities.”

University of Hawaiʻi Foundation CEO Tim Dolan concluded, “We are tremendously grateful to Dr. Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg for their generous gift and commitment to restoring our oceans. Through their visionary generosity, our UH researchers and partners will have the essential funding needed to gain new knowledge and ultimately help our world’s oceans. The timing of this incredible investment will generate enormous momentum for UH’s ambitious capital campaign.”

Read also on The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Forbes, Big Island Now, Hawaii Public Radio (here and here), Honolulu Star-Advertiser (subscription required), Honolulu Civil Beat, The Garden Island, Yahoo News, SF Gate, Hawaii News Now, UH News.

The history of life on Earth has been marked five times by events of mass biodiversity extinction caused by extreme natural phenomena. Today, many experts warn that a Sixth Mass Extinction crisis is underway, this time entirely caused by human activities.

A comprehensive assessment of evidence of this ongoing extinction event was published recently in the journal Biological Reviews by biologists from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris, France.

“Drastically increased rates of species extinctions and declining abundances of many animal and plant populations are well documented, yet some deny that these phenomena amount to mass extinction,” said Robert Cowie, lead author of the study and research professor at the UH Mānoa Pacific Biosciences Research Center in the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST). “This denial is based on a highly biased assessment of the crisis which focuses on mammals and birds and ignores invertebrates, which of course constitute the great majority of biodiversity.”

By extrapolating from estimates obtained for land snails and slugs, Cowie and co-authors estimated that since the year 1500, Earth could already have lost between 7.5 and 13% of the two million known species – a staggering 150,000 to 260,000 species.

“Including invertebrates was key to confirming that we are indeed witnessing the onset of the Sixth Mass Extinction in Earth’s history,” said Cowie.

The situation is not the same everywhere, however. Although marine species face significant threats, there is no evidence that the crisis is affecting the oceans to the same extent as the land. On land, island species, such as those of the Hawaiian Islands, are much more affected than continental species. And the rate of extinction of plants seems lower than that of terrestrial animals.

Unfortunately, along with science denial taking a foothold in modern society on a range of issues, the new study points out that some people also deny that the Sixth Extinction has begun. Additionally, others accept it as a new and natural evolutionary trajectory, as humans are just another species playing their natural role in Earth’s history. Some even consider that biodiversity should be manipulated solely for the benefit of humanity – but benefit defined by whom?

“Humans are the only species capable of manipulating the biosphere on a large scale,” Cowie emphasized. “We are not just another species evolving in the face of external influences. In contrast, we are the only species that has conscious choice regarding our future and that of Earth’s biodiversity.”

To fight the crisis, various conservation initiatives have been successful for certain charismatic animals. But these initiatives cannot target all species, and they cannot reverse the overall trend of species extinction. Nonetheless, it is essential to continue such efforts, to continue to cultivate a wonder for nature, and crucially to document biodiversity before it disappears.

“Despite the rhetoric about the gravity of the crisis, and although remedial solutions exist and are brought to the attention of decision-makers, it is clear that political will is lacking,” said Cowie. “Denying the crisis, accepting it without reacting, or even encouraging it constitutes an abrogation of humanity’s common responsibility and paves the way for Earth to continue on its sad trajectory towards the Sixth Mass Extinction.”

Read also on MSN News, IFL Science, Independent, The Daily Mail, Eurasia Review, UH News, Eurekalert, KITV, VICE, Hawaii Tribune-Herald and more.

On the tranquil shores of Moku o Loʻe (Coconut Island) in Kāneʻohe Bay, Eleanor Sterling, the newly appointed director of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB) in the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology was officially welcomed into her new role. The January 3 ceremony incorporated symbolic Hawaiian protocol carefully selected as a way to pay homage to the people, traditional moʻolelo (stories) and lineage of the ahupuaʻa (land division) of Heʻeia where HIMB’s 28-acre island research facility is located.

“One of the central intentions of the ceremony was to re-establish this place as a Native Hawaiian place of learning,” said Kawika Winter, associate professor of ʻāina sciences and reserve manager at Heʻeia National Estuarine Research Reserve. “Part of doing that is honoring the place names and the associated histories of said place.”

It is a vision fully embraced by Sterling, an internationally renowned scholar in biocultural diversity, conservation policy and resource management. Her recent studies have focused on culturally-attuned indicators of human and environmental health and well-being on Pacific Islands, including Hawaiʻi.

“There are already so many wonderful initiatives underway at HIMB,” Sterling said. “I think one way I can contribute is to help shine a greater light on them, to share the stories even more broadly so others understand the importance of the work at HIMB and its contributions to making Hawaiʻi and the world a better place. I am passionate about creating spaces for creative interchange, for transdisciplinary thought, for artists to work in concert with scientists to break down confining assumptions and re-envision how we think, know and act.”

At the start of the ceremony, Sterling hit the ground running before stepping foot onto Moku o Loʻe. From the deck of a boat, she and her husband, Kevin Frey, engaged in traditional protocol, presenting an oli (chant) to kūpuna from Heʻeia and about 40 HIMB staff, faculty and students as a way to ask permission to disembark. The oli was written specifically for the occasion and filled with images that came to Sterling’s husband in a dream. Winter helped compose it, intertwining odes to elements of nature that nourish Moku o Loʻe and interconnect the island to its ahupuaʻa.

Excerpt from oli, Nolu pē Heʻeia

Nolu pē Heʻeia i ke onaona ʻiliahi
The sweet fragrance of the sandalwood rests upon Heʻeia

Māpu ke ʻala i ke Koʻolau
The scent wafts to the summit of the Koʻolau

Puīa ka ua i ke onaona
There the rain is infused with its scent

“I was at first nervous because chanting oli is not just about memorizing some phrases and ensuring you say the right word at the right time,” Sterling said. “Oli learners can spend months exploring each word or turn of phrase to choose which of the many, many possible meanings make sense to them. That richness of the Hawaiian language is at once exhilarating and daunting. My husband Kevin and I ended up having about a week to get to know this beautiful oli. We knew that people would be forgiving if we stumbled as we chanted but we wanted nothing to distract from honoring this place and people. This oli honors connections within and across the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa, its lands, seas and people.”

Respected Native Hawaiian cultural practitioner and Windward Community College lecturer Kumu Kawaikapuokalani Frank Hewett and Kupuna Leialoha “Rocky” Kaluhiwa welcomed Sterling onto the island with an oli on behalf of the community. Their ʻohana (family) are deeply rooted and tied to the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa.

ʻAuamo (working together)

Participants were asked to join Sterling in the outplanting of ʻiliahi-a-Loʻe, a native coastal sandalwood tree thought to have once populated the island. Organizers said the intent behind it was not only to return the plant to its native home, but also to mark a new era of HIMB where everyone comes together with a common goal.

“HIMB’s commitment to grounding and centering its program in Indigenous knowledge is a great illustration of the direction UH Mānoa has committed to moving towards,” said Kaiwipunikauikawēkiu Lipe, UH Mānoa Native Hawaiian affairs program officer. “Our campus continues to strive to become a Native Hawaiian place of learning with the goal of manifesting more efforts like this throughout our curriculum, courses and colleges on campus.”

​​The ceremony concluded with a meal prepared by the Kaluhiwa and Domingo ʻohana whose connection to the ahupuaʻa of Heʻeia traces back more than 30 generations. Organizers asked if they would provide mea ʻai (food) to symbolize that HIMB’s work on the island cannot exist without the generosity of the community.

The HIMB is a world leader in multi-disciplinary research and education in all aspects of marine sciences.

More on Sterling

Building on her interdisciplinary training and more than 30 years of field research and community collaboration experience in Oceania, Africa, Asia and Latin America, Sterling’s work focuses on systems approaches to conservation and natural resource management; food systems; the intersection between biodiversity, culture and languages; the factors influencing ecological and social resilience; and the development of indicators of multidimensional well-being.

Source: UH News.

The first on-the-ground detection of water on the Moon’s surface was reported by an international team of researchers, including Shuai Li, a planetary geologist at the University of Hawai‘i (UH) at Mānoa. Understanding the concentrations and distributions of water on the Moon is critical to understanding its formation and evolution, and to providing water resources for future human exploration.

Li along with Honglei Lin and Rui Xu, both scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, led the study to analyze spectrometer data from the Chinese Chang’E 5 lunar lander that visited the Moon in 2020. Previous research provided evidence of lunar surface water based on sensors orbiting the Moon or measurements of water molecules in samples returned to Earth. The new study, published today in Science Advances, reported the first in-situ measurements of water on the lunar surface and ground truths past observations.  

The Chang’E 5 lander was equipped with a spectrometer, a scientific instrument that receives reflected sunlight from the lunar surface and, depending on how the light is absorbed or reflected, can indicate the mineralogy and water content of the surface materials. The spectrometer onboard the lander performed measurements of the landscape and a rock, providing the unprecedented opportunity to detect lunar surface water.

“We analyzed the reflectance data from the spectrometer onboard the lander using similar methods that had been used in my previous studies to understand the distribution and origins of water on the Moon,” said Li, who is an assistant researcher at the Hawai‘i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology in the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST).

Most lunar soils analyzed at the landing site are extremely dry, not much different from Apollo samples returned around 50 years ago. However, a piece of rock near the lander was full of vesicles and spectrometer data indicated a higher water content.  That was a surprise to the researchers.

“Most likely the rock is an igneous origin, similar to lava rocks seen near the beach of Hawai‘i,” said Li.

“Compositional and orbital remote sensing analyses show that the rock may be excavated from an older basaltic unit and ejected to the landing site of Chang’E-5,” added lead author Honglei Lin, associate professor at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of Chinese Academy of Sciences. “Thus, the lower water content of the soil, as compared to the higher water content of the rock fragment, may suggest the degassing of the mantle reservoir beneath the Chang’E-5 landing site.”

This discovery is consistent with the prolonged volcanic eruptions in the region, and it reinforces Li’s previous findings that in-situ resource utilization of lunar water may be only limited to pyroclastic deposits at the lunar low latitude and water ice deposits in the lunar permanently shaded regions near the poles. 

The recent findings also provide vital geological context for the analysis of the rock samples returned to Earth by the Chang’E-5 mission in December 2020. Further, Li hopes to cross-validate the spectroscopic observations with analysis of returned samples.

The study was done in collaboration with National Space Science Center of CAS (Yang Liu), Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics of CAS (Rui Xu and He Zhiping) and Nanjing University (Hejiu Hui).

Read more on UH News, Eurekalert and Hawaii Public Radio.

Coastal plants and animals have found a new way to survive in the open ocean—by colonizing plastic pollution. A new commentary published recently in Nature Communications reports coastal species growing on trash hundreds of miles out to sea in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, more commonly known as the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch.”

The authors, including two oceanographers from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST), call these communities neopelagic. “Neo” means new, and “pelagic” refers to the open ocean, as opposed to the coast.

Scientists first began suspecting coastal species could use plastic to survive in the open ocean for long periods after the 2011 tsunami in Japan, when they discovered that nearly 300 species had rafted all the way across the Pacific on tsunami debris over the course of several years. But until now, confirmed sightings of coastal species on plastic directly in the open ocean were rare and the ability of coastal species to reproduce in the pelagic ocean was not proven.

The latest discovery is a one of main results of the FloatEco project, funded by NASA’s “Life in the Moving Ocean” initiative and led by SOEST scientists Nikolai Maximenko and Jan Hafner teaming up with lead author of the publication and former postdoctoral fellow Linsey Haram; Greg Ruiz, head of the Laboratory of Marine Invasions at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC); Ocean Voyages Institute, a nonprofit that collects plastic pollution on sailing expeditions; and scientists from the Lagrangian Drifter Laboratory at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Applied Physics Laboratory at University of Washington, Williams College, and Ocean and Fisheries Canada.

Gyres of ocean plastic form when surface currents drive plastic pollution from the coasts into regions where rotating currents trap the floating objects—including microplastics, nets, buoys and bottles—carrying organisms from their coastal homes with them.

Maximenko and Hafner created models that could predict where plastic was most likely to pile up in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre and shared that information with Ocean Voyages Institute to help optimize their operations. Together with other members of the team, they also designed, built, and deployed a suite of Lagrangian instruments to observe physical and biological processes governing the floating ecosystem.

A New Open Ocean

During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ocean Voyages Institute founder Mary Crowley and her team managed to collect a record-breaking 103 tons of plastics and other debris from the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. She shipped some of those samples to SERC’s Marine Invasions Lab. There, Haram analyzed the species that had colonized them. She found many coastal species—including anemones, hydroids and shrimp-like amphipods—not only surviving, but thriving, on marine plastic.

“The issues of plastic go beyond just ingestion and entanglement,” said Haram. “It’s creating opportunities for coastal species’ biogeography to greatly expand beyond what we previously thought was possible.”

A Sea of Questions

For marine scientists, the very existence of this “new open ocean” community is a paradigm shift. Plastic is providing new habitat in the open ocean. And somehow, coastal rafters are finding food.

Now, scientists have to wrestle with how these coastal rafters could shake up the environment. The open ocean has plenty of its own native species, which also colonize floating debris. The arrival of new coastal neighbors could disrupt ocean ecosystems that have remained undisturbed for millennia. Vast colonies of coastal species floating in the open ocean for years at a time could act as a new reservoir, giving coastal rafters more opportunities to invade new coastlines.

The authors still do not know how common these “neopelagic” communities are, whether they can sustain themselves or if they even exist outside the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. But the world’s dependence on plastic continues to climb. Scientists estimate cumulative global plastic waste could reach over 25 billion metric tons by 2050. With fiercer and more frequent storms on the horizon thanks to climate change, the authors expect even more of that plastic will get pushed out to sea. Colonies of coastal rafters on the high seas will likely only grow. This long-overlooked side effect of plastic pollution, the authors said, could soon transform life on shore and in the sea.

Read more on UH News, Big Island Gazette and KHON2.

Portions of this content courtesy of Smithsonian Institution.

Margaret McFall-Ngai, a pioneering microbiome researcher at SOEST, has been named the inaugural director of a newly created research division of the Carnegie Institution for Sciences that will focus on life and environmental sciences.

McFall-Ngai, a Guggenheim Fellow and member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Microbiology, joined Carnegie in January 2022.

“Margaret McFall-Ngai helped develop pioneering cross-disciplinary research here at the University of Hawaiʻi on the interaction between humans and the environmental microbiome. She’s broken new ground with her own research on Hawaiian bobtail squid at the Kewalo Marine Lab, which has influenced many students and scientists here at UH and beyond,” said UH President David Lassner. “But more importantly, in her years here with us, Margaret has helped us all think differently about life sciences and she has led the cultivation of our next generation of creative and collaborative researchers and students, who are helping us understand and care for our ʻāina and therefore our people.”

“This is an inflection point in the field of biology,” McFall-Ngai said. “We found the microbial world is foundational to the field of biology. It’s the biggest change in our view of the biosphere since Darwin.”

McFall-Ngai has applied for an emeritus faculty position and a non-compensated appointment, which would allow her to continue to write grants with researchers at UH Mānoa, which she says is now viewed as a major microbiome research center.

Microbiome mecca

In 1996, McFall-Ngai became the first tenured woman at the Kewalo Marine Laboratory. She left in 2004 for the University of Wisconsin at Madison and held a number of prestigious appointments before returning to UH in 2015 to serve as director of the Pacific Biosciences Research Center (PBRC). Much of her research focuses on the relationship between the Hawaiian bobtail squid and the luminescent bacterium Vibrio fischeri. Using this model, she and other researchers are studying how the microbiome shapes various aspects of animal and plant life, including development and longevity.

In 2017, a group of cross-disciplinary researchers, including McFall-Ngai were one of the winners of the UH Mānoa provost’s inaugural Strategic Investment Competition. That initial $700,000 investment helped to create the Center for Microbiome Analysis through Island Knowledge and Investigation (C-MĀIKI). Since that initial investment, C-MĀIKI has generated more than $14 million in extramural funding to support research and curriculum development. Through it all, McFall-Ngai has served as one of the key advisors to the group.

“They are people who study the microbial world—what we call the Earthʻs microbiomes. And those microbiomes are at the basis of health of absolutely everything,” she said. “From the oceans to the soils to the forests—every animal is impacted by interacting with the microbial world and every plant.”

In 2018, the W.M. Keck Foundation awarded $1 million to a cross-disciplinary group of researchers headed by McFall-Ngai for a groundbreaking UH project that established the Waimea watershed on the north shore of Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi as a model microbiome mesocosm⏼that is, a study site small enough to thoroughly investigate but large enough to reveal the complexities of natural systems. It was the first study of an entire watershed, from ridge to reef, to map its microbial communities and their ecosystem processes.

That same year, McFall-Ngai, was selected to receive a MERIT award of more than $5 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). MERIT or Method to Extend Research In Time awards have been offered since 1986 to “distinctly superior” investigators who have demonstrated high levels of competence and productivity in previous research efforts and “who are highly likely to continue to perform in an outstanding manner.”

McFall-Ngai and Researcher Ned Ruby served as principal investigators for a $10.4-million grant awarded in 2019 to a cross-disciplinary group of junior researchers from the NIH Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) to support the first center focusing on the interface between environmental microbiomes and human health.

Many of the researchers who are part of the COBRE grant are housed in UH Mānoa’s new Life Sciences Building. The aim of the three “cores”—microscopy, insectary and molecular biology/biochemistry—are to develop the tools to understand the interface between human and environmental health, and the microbial forces at work.

“The COBRE is a gift to UH. It is the opportunity to create an active center for the study of the dynamic relationship between Earth’s microbiomes and human health,” McFall-Ngai said. “This gift will not only benefit researchers at UH, but the center has every opportunity for being a mecca for researchers from across the nation and around the world.”

UH’s microbiome future

With McFall-Ngai’s and Ruby’s departures, other UH scientists will assume principal investigator duties for the COBRE grant.

“What I was hoping for with the COBRE core is that we might become something like a Smithsonian tropical research institute, but in the central Pacific for people who want to study the interface between the microbial world and other aspects of the environment,” she said.

Lassner concluded, “We will forever be grateful to Margaret for leading Hawaiʻi to the vanguard of environmental microbiome research and we look forward to our future collaborations as she assumes her new post at the Carnegie Institute for Science.”

Read also on UH News.

The Pacific Islands Ocean Observing System (PacIOOS) within the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa is collaborating with partners in the Pacific Islands, the Pacific Northwest, and Alaska to improve access to ocean data for Indigenous coastal communities through a new project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Convergence Accelerator program.  

Indigenous coastal communities have depended on ocean resources over millennia but climate change is creating a more unpredictable ocean by influencing waves, sea level, temperature, and other factors, profoundly impacting remote coastal communities.

The goal of the project is to get oceanographic data into the hands of Indigenous communities in a way that takes advantage of existing, lower cost wave buoy technology and enables sustained community-led stewardship of the buoys. Through co-design, the team aims to revolutionize the status quo by providing new tools and new connections that will provide critical safety information at a locally relevant  scale.

“Wave data, for example, can help a local mariner determine whether it is safe to fish that day or travel to another island to deliver goods,” said Melissa Iwamoto, director of PacIOOS and co-principal on the NSF project. “Our partners and users are asking for more ocean information to enhance safety and improve decision-making, and many also want more autonomy in maintaining the instrumentation.”

Collaboration is key to developing solutions

Three regional systems of the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (PacIOOS in Hawai‘i and the U.S. Pacific Islands, NANOOS in the northwest U.S., and AOOS in Alaska); Sofar Ocean, a low-cost buoy and sensor company; and Indigenous partners from the Pacific Islands (villages in the Marshall Islands and American Samoa via the Marshall Islands Conservation Society and the National Park of American Samoa), Washington coast (Quileute Tribe and Quinault Indian Nation), and Alaska (11 whaling villages in the Arctic) will collectively work to develop solutions to overcome existing hurdles of observing technologies that are too expensive to purchase and too expensive to sustain when conducted in isolation. 

In the initial phase of the project, partners will work to assess coastal community needs and determine how existing lower-cost Sofar Ocean Spotter wave buoy and Smart Mooring technologies can address those needs. Working together, they will develop community-driven stewardship programs that can maintain the buoys into the future in partnership with the regional ocean observing systems, utilizing the strengths of the regional systems to serve data to remote communities in ways that work for them. 

The collaboration embraces new, lower-cost technologies and utilizes the power of local ownership for maintaining ocean observations that are critical to serve the blue economy worldwide. The Indigenous communities in turn will provide feedback on the utility of the technologies as well as offering input on ocean conditions from centuries of local observations. The co-designed approach is in line with the focus of NSF’s Convergence Accelerator: advancing use-inspired solutions into practical applications that address large-scale societal challenges. 

“Increased access to ocean data is essential for coastal communities’ safety and livelihoods,” said Iwamoto. “We are excited by how this project will help us to quickly advance our goals to address our user needs through collaboration with new and existing partners across disciplines and geographies.”

In addition to providing localized data for coastal communities, the data will be available for large-scale scientific research to improve understanding and prediction of coastal dynamics, especially in a changing ocean. 

More about NSF’s Convergence Accelerator

National-scale societal challenges cannot be solved by a single discipline. Instead, these challenges require convergence: the merging of innovative ideas, approaches, and technologies from a wide and diverse range of sectors and expertise. Launched in 2019, the NSF Convergence Accelerator is an intense, hands-on 9-month journey that builds upon basic research and discovery to accelerate solutions toward societal impact.

If funded for phase two of the accelerator program, the team’s work will broaden participation and networking to more communities, to serve needs of underserved communities and further adapt innovative technologies and techniques. 

Read more on Honolulu Star-Advertiser (subscription required), Phys.org, Big Island Now, PacIOOS News and UH News.