Zoology in Hawai`i
The biology of Hawai`i — the environments and the organisms — is extraordinary,
and offers unique opportunities for research and graduate education.
Marine biology:
Hawai‘i, a group of small islands in a tropical ocean (the only tropical
state in the country), is an outstanding location for marine biology.
The islands are fringed by extensive coral reefs and a variety of other
marine habitats, and are the country’s gateway to the rest of the Indo-Pacific
region. This access — unmatched elsewhere in the U.S. if not the world
— to an ocean-wide diversity of marine animals and environments long has
places Hawai‘i at the forefront of research in marine biology.
Evolutionary biology:
The extreme isolation of the islands, together with their great diversity
of habitats — ranging, despite the small area, from rich coral reefs to
freezing alpine barrens, from the wettest spot on earth to virtual deserts
— have produced a unique, wonderful biota. While some major groups of animals
are nearly or entirely absent from the native fauna, other groups have
undergone extraordinary evolutionary radiations. As a result, the great
majority of native species are endemic, found nowhere else in the world.
Many have evolved forms or functions quite unlike those of their relatives
elsewhere; carnivorous caterpillars and “woodpecker” honeycreepers are
among the more striking examples. Hawai‘i thus is an outstanding “natural
laboratory of evolution,” presenting exceptional opportunities to study
not only the evolutionary processes responsible for this unique fauna,
but also the ecological relationships within the unusual communities
resulting from the absences and proliferations of different groups.
Conservation biology:
The native biology of Hawai‘i, unfortunately, also is one of the most threatened
in the world, constituting an exceptional “laboratory of extinction.” The
isolated island setting has made the native biota extremely susceptible
to habitat destruction and invasive species. As a result, despite representing
only a very small part the land area of the U.S., Hawai‘i has the majority
of the country’s recorded extinctions and of its endangered species. The
opportunities in Hawai‘i for conservation biology research and action
thus are plentiful, and pressing.
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Last update: 15 December 1999
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