Patrick Hart
Kainana Francisco
Tishanna Ben
Shea Uehana
We have been collaborating over the past few years with researchers including Ed Cook from the Lamont-Doherty Tree-ring Lab and Gerd Helle from the Helmholtz Center in Potsdam Germany to examine growth patterns of trees in subalpine habitat on Maunakea. We have used standard dendrochronological methods to demonstrate that rings are indeed produced annually in māmane, as well as other species such as naio and akoko. This is very exciting, as it represents the first evidence of annual rings for any tropical species growing in the Pacific region. We have also demonstrated that these trees do not appear to reach ages much greater than 250 years and grow relatively quickly, good news for forest restoration efforts for the endangered Palila honeycreeper! Please see the “publications” section of this website for links to relevant manuscripts, including:
- Francisco, K.S. et al. 2015. Annual rings in a native Hawaiian tree, Sophora chrysophylla, on Maunakea, Hawaii. Journal of Tropical Ecology
- Ben, T. et al. 2017. Towards establishing a new environmental archive- Annual Growth Periodicity, Stable Carbon Isotope Variability and Reconstruction Potential of ‘Akoko (Euphorbia olowaluana), A Native Hawaiian Tree with C, Photosynthetic Pathway. Erdkunde 71(1):77-92
- Uehana, S. et al. 2019. Further investigation of the dendrochronological potential of māmane (Sophora chrysophylla) on Maunakea, Hawai‘i. In submission
