Dr. Patrick Hart (UH-Hilo)
Dr. Kristina Paxton
Dr. Esther Sebastian-Gonzalez (UH-Hilo)
Keith Burnett (UH Hilo)
Ann Tanimoto (UH-Hilo)
Past graduate students: Joshua Pang-Ching, Nicole Fernandez
One major area of research in the LOHE lab looks at the biogeography of birdsong, or how song characteristics vary at different spatial scales across the landscape as a function of fragment size and degree of isolation. Within the Hawaiian islands, there is lots of potential for isolation of bird populations as a result of both natural and anthropogenic habitat fragmentation. Natural fragmentation often occurs as a result of lava flows that create islands of vegetation (kipuka) surrounded by a matrix of barren lava. Anthropogenic fragmentation has been occurring in Hawaii for centuries as a result of farming, logging, and ranching. We have also addressed these questions in wet forest fragments in Costa Rica. Please see the “publications” section of this website for links to relevant manuscripts, including:
- Sebastian-Gonzalez and Hart. 2017. Birdsong meme diversity in a fragmented habitat depends on landscape and species characteristics. Oikos 126: 1511-1521.
- Hart et al. 2018. Birdsong characteristics are related to fragment size in a neotropical forest. Animal Behaviour 137:45-52.
- Pang-Ching et al. 2018. The effect of isolation, fragmentation, and population bottlenecks on song structure of a Hawaiian honeycreeper. Ecology and Evolution.
