Rapid Response to a Tree Seed Conservation Challenge in Hawai‘i Through Crowdsourcing, Citizen Science, and Community Engagement

Abstract

Forest ecosystems are vulnerable to disturbances, especially novel, invasive fungal pathogens, which can cause rapid destruction. In such a crisis, it is imperative to respond quickly, and seed banking is a critical strategy to preserve genetic diversity. In Hawaiʻi, forests have been recently threatened by Rapid ʻŌhiʻa Death (ROD), a novel fungal disease caused by Ceratocystis lukuohia and C. huliohia, which has killed over a million trees of endemic Metrosideros species. Through the #OhiaLove crowdfunding campaign, over US$50,000 was raised to immediately begin a seed collection and storage program in 2016. In the following years, the project was scaled up to the ROD Seed Banking Initiative, which added a component of training community members to participate in citizen science and contribute seed collections to the project. Collections from over 1100 trees have been stored, representing 6 islands, 13 taxa, and 46 seed zones, and the effort is ongoing. Several critical factors contributed to the success of this initiative, including innovation, timeliness, collaboration, sciencebased practices, transparency, and community engagement. The ROD Seed Banking Initiative provides a model for rapid response to other tree seed conservation challenges.

A framework for establishing a rapid ‘Ōhi‘a death resistance program

“…Artificial inoculation methods need to consistently cause infection (low false negative rate) that mimics natural infection to provide useful results (McKenna et al 2011). Additionally, fine-tuned inoculation methods will allow for more nuanced observation of intermediate levels of disease resistance (Hansen et al 2012, Sniezko et al 2014, 2020.…”

“…The ROD Seed Banking Initiative was established to collect and store Metrosideros seeds from naturally occurring trees throughout Hawaiʻi, with the goal of preserving the genetic diversity of these taxa for restoration and disease research efforts (Chau 2020). Provisional seed zones were established based on climatic and environmental parameters, providing the foundation for a collection strategy in this large, multi-agency initiative (Chau 2020;Laukahi 2020). Representative seed samples from populations across the islands will be screened for resistance to ROD, with the seed bank providing the ʻŌDRP easy access to seeds from a diverse set of Metrosideros taxa and genotypes.…”

“…Site selection for seed orchards will need to consider appropriate pairing of environmental conditions and climate to Metrosideros taxa. Ideally, seed orchards would be established in the same seed zone that they were collected from and provide seeds for their respective regions, like establishment of seed orchards for wilt-resistant koa (Dudley et al 2017;2020). Establishment of seed orchards, from local seed sources when possible, on most of the islands in the state would be an important tool for supplying local restoration efforts.…”

How Personality and Communication Patterns Affect Online ad-hoc Teams Under Pressure

“…The role of these one-time crowd users is important when it acts as a fast and ubiquitous response to urgent, environmental and social crises (hurricanes, terrorist attacks, widespread fires, large oil spills, etc.) (Heinzelman and Waters, 2010;Yuan and Liu, 2018;Chau, 2020), protest movements (Elsafoury, 2020), but also activism (Farkas and Neumayer, 2017;Lee, 2020) and civic participation (Hemphill and Roback, 2014;Mitchell and Lim, 2018). In critical scenarios of this kind, the crowd is intended as a manifold social tool by servicing as a reporter, social computer, sensor, and executor of both micro and macro-tasks.…”

New records of Aristolochia (Aristolochiaceae) from Brazil: the importance of citizen science as a tool to study geographic distribution, conservation and insect-plant interactions

“…Tools such as iNaturalist and PlantNet, an additional app for plant identification and recording, have shown to be highly useful by documenting biodiversity through photographic records from citizen science (Bonnet et al, 2020). Citizen science is a powerful ally for ecological, conservation and taxonomic studies, as it makes available reliable data from nature sympathizers that provide novel geographic records and little-known life history traits, or org/10.22201/ib.20078706e.2022.93.4971 even that help the discovering of new species (Bonnet et al, 2020;Chau, 2022;Gonella et al, 2015;Neill & Kieschnick, 2021).…”