Dr. Patrick Hart
Dr. Thomas Ibanez
Shea Uehana
Joshua Pang-Ching
We have been monitoring the growth, mortality, and recruitment of all trees within two-hundred 30m diameter plots in our 200 hectare Hakalau Forest study area since the mid-1990’s. This has enabled us to demonstrate that:
- The dominant ‘ōhi‘a grows is among the slowest growing trees on the refuge but reaches ages of over 500 years, making it among the oldest angiosperm trees in the northern hemisphere
- Koa grows much faster than ‘ōhi‘a but has a much higher annual mortality rate
- The fencing and removal of ungulates from the refuge led to a huge pulse of native tree recruitment and increases in basal area for most species
- Prior to fencing, large koa trees, so important to the forest bird community, were dying much faster than they were getting replaced. Fencing and ungulate removal likely rescued the koa population at Hakalau.
Please see the “publications” section of this website for links to relevant manuscripts on forest dynamics at Hakalau, as well as other Hawaiian wet forests, including:
- Hart, P.J., T.P. Ibanez. S. Uehana, and J. Pang-Ching. 2019. Forest regeneration following ungulate removal in a montane Hawaiian wet forest. Submitted to Restoration Ecology Ibanez, T.P. and P.J. Hart. 2019. Spatial patterns of tree recruitment in a montane Hawaiian wet forest after removal of grazers. Submitted to Journal of Vegetation Science
- Hart, P.J. 2010. Tree growth and age in an ancient Hawaiian wet forest: vegetation dynamics at two spatial scales. Journal of Tropical Ecology 25: 1-11.
- Hart, P.J. 2013. Patterns of tree mortality in a monodominant tropical forest. Tropical Forests. P. Sudarshana (Ed.)
- Zimmerman, N., R.F. Hughes, S. Cordell, P.J. Hart, H.K. Chang, D. Perez, R.K. Like, and R. Ostertag. 2008. Patterns of primary succession of native and introduced plants in lowland wet forests in Eastern Hawai'i. Biotropica 40: 277-284
