Paul C Banko

Abundance data are collected for bird populations throughout the Pacific Islands by numerous federal, state, university, and non-profit organizations. In order to ensure data are standardized and available to researchers throughout the region, interagency bird databases have been created and continue to be used. These databases contain more than a million compiled, proofed, and standardized...

Introduced rats are notorious predators of birds and their nests worldwide, but especially on remote islands. Rats ( Rattus exulans ) first arrived in Hawai‘i with Polynesian colonists about 1,000 years ago, resulting in deleterious consequences for native birds and ecosystems. Since Western contact in 1778, two additional rat species have become established in Hawai‘i, including the highly...

Small mammals (including three species of rats and one species of mongoose) and social Hymenoptera (order of insects including ants and yellowjacket wasps) form two groups of alien predators in Hawaiian ecosystems. The combined impact of these predators has resulted in substantial loss or reduction of native biota in the Pacific. Furthermore, given the past successes of managing or excluding feral...

Islands and atolls throughout the Pacific have been impacted by invasive ant species. Threatening native ants and other arthropods with their aggressive behavior and ability to colonize large geographic areas, invasive ants pose one of the most serious threats to island ecosystems. This project focuses on three areas of the Pacific: American Samoa, Rose Atoll, and Johnston Atoll.

The palila is an endangered species of Hawaiian honeycreeper which exists only in subalpine forests dominated by māmane and naio on Mauna Kea Volcano. The diet of this finch-billed bird is unusually restricted; immature seeds, flowers, and insects found on māmane trees are critical to its existence. Māmane also is the preferred nesting substrate of the palila. Federal court orders have resulted in...

The Samoan swallowtail is a large and strikingly marked butterfly endemic to the Samoan Archipelago. Once widespread and common, its populations have declined dramatically, and it now appears restricted to the island of Tutuila, an area representing approximately 5% of its former range. There are few insects that are commonly thought of as indicators of ecosystem health, but the Samoan swallowtail...

‘I‘iwi populations have severely declined in recent decades in Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park (HAVO) and elsewhere in the Hawaiian Islands due to the cumulative impacts of many invasive threats that have degraded habitats, disrupted food webs, competed for resources, depredated nests and birds, and transmitted diseases.

A massive outbreak of the native koa looper moth (Scotorythra paludicola; Geometridae) defoliated more than a third of the koa (Acacia koa) forest on Hawai‘i Island during 2013–2014. Our objective was to record the dynamics of the koa looper (Scotorythra paludicola) outbreak and evaluate the response to the outbreak by the forest ecosystem generally as well as select native and invasive species...