{"id":20265,"date":"2016-04-25T15:41:34","date_gmt":"2016-04-25T20:41:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=20265"},"modified":"2016-04-25T15:41:34","modified_gmt":"2016-04-25T20:41:34","slug":"trouble-in-paradise-fatal-blight-threatens-a-key-hawaiian-tree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=20265","title":{"rendered":"Trouble in Paradise: Fatal Blight Threatens A Key Hawaiian Tree"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trouble in Paradise: Fatal Blight\u00a0Threatens A Key Hawaiian Tree<\/a><\/h3>\n

The \u02bbohi\u02bba is Hawaii\u2019s iconic tree, a keystone species that maintains healthy watersheds and provides habitat for numerous endangered birds. But a virulent fungal disease, possibly related to a warmer, drier climate, is now felling the island\u2019s cherished `ohi`a forests.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Rikki Cooke\/The Nature Conservancy<\/div>\n
An ‘ohi’a forest in the Kamakou Preserve on the Hawaiian island of Moloka’i.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Hawaii\u2019s isolation, 2,390 miles from the North American mainland, has given the island chain a unique array of species found nowhere else, including the \u02bbohi\u02bba lehua, an evergreen in the myrtle family with delicate pom-pom-shaped flowers composed of clusters of showy stamens in a range of hues from red and orange to pale yellow. In 2010, homeowners on the Big Island of Hawaii began reporting that \u02bbohi\u02bba in their upland rainforest were dying without apparent cause. Researchers named the mysterious condition \u201cRapid \u02bbOhi\u02bba Death\u201d (ROD).<\/div>\n

On Google Earth, you can see the telltale brown streaks in the Puna forest reserve, Hawaii’s largest remaining upland rainforest located on the slope of Kilauea volcano, where many \u02bbohi\u02bba lehua (Metrosideros polymorpha<\/em>) trees have already succumbed. If you scroll over 60 miles to the west to the other side of the island, the green canopy behind Kealakekua Bay on the Kona coast \u2014 where Captain James Cook first set foot on Hawaii and was later killed \u2014 is pocked with the bleached skeletons of dead and dying trees.<\/p>\n

Scenes like these have become commonplace in the American West, where several conifer species, weakened by long-term drought and warmer temperatures, have been decimated by bark beetles. Researchers are wondering if climate change may also have stressed \u02bbohi\u02bba trees, perhaps helping to trigger the current outbreak on Hawaii.<\/p>\n

The fungus clogs the vascular system of the trees, making them wilt and die as if from a drought.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trouble in Paradise: Fatal Blight\u00a0Threatens A Key Hawaiian Tree The \u02bbohi\u02bba is Hawaii\u2019s iconic tree, a keystone species that maintains healthy watersheds and provides habitat for numerous endangered birds. But a virulent fungal disease, possibly related to a warmer, drier climate, is now felling the island\u2019s cherished `ohi`a forests. Rikki Cooke\/The Nature Conservancy An ‘ohi’a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[13642,8838,13643,13641,8506],"class_list":["post-20265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-blight","tag-hawaii","tag-ohia","tag-richard-schiffman","tag-yale-360-environment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20265"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20266,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20265\/revisions\/20266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}