Closer to fine: Surviving interactions between Hawaiian honeycreepers and a critically endangered aster
The Hawaiian Archipelago faces some of the highest rates of extinction globally. Many native plants and their pollinators have gone extinct or are at risk, and invasive species are embedded in most pollinator networks. Hesperomannia oahuensis is a critically endangered aster, with the wild population reduced to one mature individual and one immature individual. Since 2010 four reintroductions were established where mature plants are reliant on hand-pollination to produce viable seed set. In an attempt to quantify the possibility of further reintroduction without need for hand-pollination, we deployed game cameras at one reintroduction site to observe pollinators at the mature individuals to document any instances of potential pollination by native or invasive birds. We found that Hesperomannia is primarily interacted with by native pollinators, bucking trends of non-native reliance, and indicating that there still remain some native-native interactions within the Hawaiian ecosystem.
Authors
- Kapua Kawelo
- Autumn Bush
- Timothy Chambers (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-9666-5485)
- Walter Thomas Russell
- Jinelle Sperry
- Jonah Dominguez
- Austen Elizabeth Conlon
Institutions
- United States Army Corps of Engineers (US)
- Illinois Department of Natural Resources (US)
- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (US)
- United States Army (US)
- U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Biological Conservation
- Published
- 2026-07-23
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2026.112008
- Primary Topic
- Plant and animal studies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- National Science Foundation
- Graduate College, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign