Wings, Water, Wind Created Hawaii's Ecosystem
June 30, 2015 - Hawaii has a unique ecosystem. Because the islands were created by volcanoes, all plant life had to arrive either by water, wind, or birds. Volcanoes National Park, on the Big Island of Hawaii, was home to National Geographic's BioBlitz 2015. Volunteers joined with scientists to learn about the park's diverse organisms and to discover new species of plants, animals, and insects living there.
Transcript
Dean Gallagher
Ranger
Hawaii Volcanoes National Park
[00:02] Hawaii Volcanoes National Park has to be one of the most unique ecosystems on Earth. Spaced in the middle of the Pacific Ocean here, thousands of miles from the nearest landmass, the only way for species to get here was by one or more of the three "w" arrival mechanisms; wind, water, and wings. And that really set up for a unique Alice in Wonderland ecosystem here.
[00:25] From those few founders you end up with literally thousands of unique species found no where else on planet Earth.
Noah Gomes
Ranger
Hawaii Volcanoes National Park
[00:33] The lava comes through and wipes a clean slate, and life starts appearing fairly rapidly. As these plants grow and die, their bodies that are left behind decompose and start creating this rich mulch that other things can continue to grow off of.
Curtis Ewing
Entomologist
University of Hawaii
[00:52] We are doing a bioblitz, which is a 2-day species inventory. We have crews of many hundreds of people out here in the forest, and we have the looking at everything from the fungus growing on the ground to the birds up in the trees. It's very important to know what is in the forest at any one time, as a baseline, so in the future when people come out and they look in the forest they will know what was here in the past and they will know if anything is disappearing or if there is new invasive species that have come in.
Phoebe Niyongabile
4th Grade Student
[01:20] You see more and you learn more and you can pass down that information to other people.
Selah Fisher
4th Grade Student
[01:28] My favorite part about being in the national park is that you just get to enjoy all the scenery.
Dean Gallagher
[01:35] I really hope that as we work with children here in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park this year, they'll really take those messages to heart rather than just being given bad news about things that have happened in the past and giving them a sense of hopelessness, we're really instilling in them this new generation sense of, we can make a difference and we are making a difference.
