Aloha and welcome to the web-site for the Pacific Island Ecosystems Research Center (PIERC)

Our facility, one of seventeen USGS-BRD Centers, is the only one not located on the North American continent. It is responsible for conducting Federal research on the living natural resources in the Pacific Basin for our partners who manage these resources, the agencies in the Department of Interior, the Department of Defense, and at State and County levels in different island systems. The area we work in stretches west and south across most of the Pacific Ocean from Hawaii. It includes many of the islands of the trust territories of Polynesia and Micronesia. It is a geographic area that covers 6 time zones and both sides of the equator. This area is more than twice the size of the contiguous 48 American states. These distances and the isolation of the island systems make it logistically challenging to do our work.

Several things stand out about this region. Most of the life forms are found only on specific islands and no where else. They evolved under island conditions which resulted in literally thousands of different but unique kinds of plants and animals, many closely related taxonomically as well as ecologically. Hundreds of these species are threatened with extinction while many others have already disappeared because they were ecologically sensitive to outside threats. The factors causing their disappearance occur in both the terrestrial and the marine environments. Almost all the factors are anthropogenic or man-caused. They range from introduction of species of plants and animals that are a threat to the original endemic species, to loss of land due to developments for agriculture, tourism, and housing for the ever-growing populations of the region.

It is our job to try to identify what remains of the original biota of this region, determine what is happening with these life forms, then assess what kind of management actions our partners might undertake to ensure the survival of these unique life forms. And they are unique indeed! Birds with beautiful plumage have adapted to take nectar from flowers of specific plants, their curved bills giving them a graceful look. In the process, they pollinate the flowers and ensure that the plant species will in turn reproduce. Loss of the bird may mean loss of the plant. But unique snails and insects also abound in this close-knit ecosystem. Loss of the plants now begins to have a cascade effect throughout the island biological kingdom. In Hawaii, there are 276 listed endangered plants with even more awaiting classification, some known from a single individual specimen in the wild. The story is similar in native forest birds where 31 of 45 remaining species are listed. In one case we have only three birds of a once widely spread species left on Maui and 11 others are so rare they may be extinct. And we have no idea what species of invertebrates have been lost with these declines, and little knowledge of the resulting perturbation to the island ecosystem. On one island, Kaho`olawe, loss of species has been so severe that literally nothing grows there now, the soil being eroded away into the sea, the challenge to restore the raw, remaining landscape one that will take decades of careful planning and work. The face of paradise is changing.

You will see as you peruse our website and visit the scientists who make up the core of our staff that we are not a large Center although we are involved in many projects. We rely heavily on student interns, volunteers and our partners in accomplishing what needs to be done. We rely heavily on our cooperative unit, the PSCU, as well. We do this in an environment that is ethnically very diverse, with widely varying political structures, and with large economic differences between island systems. The sensitivity of the island systems to change affects humans directly. Already sea level rise thought due to global climate change has covered two small islands in the Western Pacific. No one knows how this will affect coral reefs, the spawning grounds for much of the Pacific deep-sea fisheries. These reefs are the source of the sandy beaches, fishing, and diving that tourists enjoy, and they provide protection against direct ocean onslaught to the islands themselves. Since 85% of the world's reefs are found in the Pacific, their loss would have a tremendous impact. We are just beginning our research in the marine area.

Culturally, the peoples of this region have evolved as the plant-animal relationships have; that is they had become not only dependent on the natural resources, but had developed their cultures to protect and nurture them over time. Exposure to new technologies and rapid development associated with Western or European civilization has caused the loss of much of this original indigenous cultural knowledge in the past century. Almost disenfranchised, these local populations are striving to integrate the new and the old. We at PIERC hope to help by setting up the first program to introduce college-level Polynesian students to the wonders that remain of their natural world, interest them in careers in biology, and give them field research experience. Our Polynesian intern program is now connected to the University of Hawaii (Hilo Campus) Hawaiian Intern Program (HIP) enabling students to earn credit as well as cash for the summer experiences. It is our desire to see the UH-HIP program help reconnect future generations with what was once a proud heritage, and to help build their paradise into its former glory.

We hope, by looking our site over, we can not only entertain but educate you in what we are attempting to do. We hope to interest you in helping us achieve the goals we have set for ourselves. At the bottom of this page you will see a quote made by one of the outstanding queens of the former Hawaiian Kingdom when she was just a young girl. Little did she realize that more than a century later her words would help form the creed by which we work and live today.

Mahalo (thank you) for spending some time with us! Your comments are appreciated!

"E mau ke ea o ka`aina."
May the life of the land be preserved.
Lydia Lili'uokalani Kamaka'eha 1868 (Queen Lili'uokalani)