Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge

The Kealia Pond is a National Wildlife Refuge for native birds, such as the Hawaiian Coot, and the Hawaiian Stilt, and native vegetation, such as the Saltgrass, and the sea purslane. The Kealia Pond is one of the five hundred refuges in America, and is home to many endangered birds. The pond swells up to four hundred acres after heavy rainfall, making it one of the biggest natural ponds left in Hawaii. The California Bulrush is an invasive species, brought here from California. The Bulrush chokes out all the native plants, where the native birds nest. Not only is it hurting the native life, California Bulrush is tall, and ugly, and blocks the view of the beautiful birds.

Common Name: Hawaiian Stilt
Scientific Name: Himantopus mexicanus knudseni
Hawaiian Name: Ae'o
Found in mudflats close to water
Endemic to Hawaii
Ae'o refers to "one standing tall"
resources.edb.gov.hk

Common Name: Hawaiian Coot
Scientific Name: Fulica Alai
Hawaiian Name: 'Alae Ke'o
Found in shollow water close to cover
Endemic to Hawaii
'Alae ke'o means "White forehead"

It is important for us to kill the Bulrush, because it is taking over the ponds and hurting the native plants and animals. This could hurt the ecosystem, cause future extinctions, and hurt tourism, the main income for Hawaii. This means that the state will be affected by the loss of birds, and the loss of tourist activities.

Our science class went to Kealia pond, and we made four different groups. Each group recorded the turbidity, water temperature, salinity, pH, phosphates, average height of plants, density, weather and any other observations. Then, one group cut the bulrush down, one sprayed them with chemicals, and one cut and sprayed the bulrush. Then, a couple weeks later, we went back to the ponds recorded the same data as before, and observed which process worked best.


Before Eradication:


After treatment:

So as you can see, the most effective treatment, was to spray the tassles. This treatment resulted in the most dead bulrush.

Photographs

Reef Survey

Reef Survey

So our latest project, was doing a reef survey. We went snorkeling in a fish pond, and identified all the fish that we saw.

Reef, Reed Enviornmental Education Foundation, is an orginization, whos goal is to conserve the marine life by educating people how to become "active ocean stewards and citizen scientists."

To learn more abou the Reef foundation, visit http://www.reef.org/.

Our snorkeling experience at the fish pond was not very enjoyable, the ground was covered in mushy sediment, and there was no visibility at all.

throughout the entire excursion I saw a total of one fish, and the rest of the time, there was nothing there to see.

I think that a recent storm in Maui is the cause of the poor conditions, there was an unbelievable amount of run-off, and destructive debree flooding the area, during the storm, and it will take a while to return to its original, and beautiful condition.

Fish Ponds!!!

Fish Ponds!

Loko Umeki

The loko Umeki was a fresh water fish pond, and could be used by only women, the women decided what happens to the fish, who eats it, where it goes, they have control over everything in the pond.The pond was basically a dug out hole in the ground, with two canals, one leading to the ocean, and one leading to freshwater.

There was a diverse group of fish in the pond, here are a few:

Limu (algae)

vegetative reproduction

Provides food for certain fish, and the people. Provides material used for building fishpond walls.

O’opu(Stream Goby)

Lays eggs

The O’opu is a herbivore, and eats the limu.Belived to be a reincarnate of pele.

Awa(Milk fish)

eats invertabrates, and algae.

Opae(spineless shrimp)

Eats plant and fish matter

carry eggs under their tail.

Tahition Prawn

They eat almost anything, but mostly algae and plant matter, as well as fish.

Here is a food web of these species, and their trophic levels.

My Partner and I posing with our project

Intertidal Zones

My group decided to study the difference in the amount of rock crabs in the upper intertidal zone, and the lower intertidal zone.

The Intertidal zone is the portion of the ocean shore under-water at high tide, and exposed at low tide.

The lower-intertidal zone is the portion exposed only at low tides.

The upper- intertidal zone is the portion immersed only at high tide.

Are there more rock crabs found in the upper-intertidal zone, or lower- intertidal zone?

We think that we will find a higher abundance of rock crabs in the lower-intertidal zone. We think that this could be because there is more water, meaning more food or because of the moisture. It is cooler than the rocks that have been sitting in the sun; it seems like the perfect habitat for rock crabs.

Results:

We found the average amount of rock crabs in the lower intertidal zone was 52/m^2, and the average amount of rock crabs in the upper intertidal zone was 39/m^2. There were more rock crabs in the lower intertidal zone.

Discussion

We found that there was a higher amount of rock crabs in the lower intertidal zone. This concludes that our hypothesis was correct.

The lower intertidal zone has more moisture, and is a more comfortable place for a rock crab to live. There also might be a higher amount of food in the area.

The results of our test might mean that crabs don’t like to be in the sun for long periods of time. They like to stay in cooler, places with water.

The amount of crabs in an area depends on temperature stress, and exposure (Stillman and Somero).

This study was important, because it is good to know about the different Intertidal zones, and the animals that live there. Some people think that they are just little crabs, but they are just as important to the ecosystem as all of the other, larger animals.

Plankton!

For my groups study, we compared the abundance of plankton in Ho’okipa and the Kihei boat ramp. There are two major types of plankton; there is phytoplankton and zooplankton. Phytoplankton is plant plankton, and zooplankton is plant plankton. We will be looking at different species of plankton and their amount.

According to a site I found, “animal life is almost entirely dependent on the phytoplankton for its existence.”- Van Nostrand’s Scientific Encyclopedia, 1989.

Question & Hypothesis-

Will there be a higher abundance of plankton in Ho'okipa, or at the Kihei
boat ramp?

We thought that we would find more plankton at Ho'okipa than the Kihei boat
ramp, because there is less pollution I the area. Therefore, the
plankton will not have to struggle to survive at Ho'okipa.

Results:
We found that the average number of copepods in Ho'okipa was 1; the
average number of polychaete was 2. At the Kihei boat ramp, we found
that there was an average of 14 copepods, and 4 poychaete. With that, we find that the average plankton at Hookipa was 3, and an average of 18 at
the Kihei Boat ramp.

We found that there was a higher abundance of plankton at the Kihei Boat
ramp, our hypothesis was incorrect.

This means that The Kihei boat ramp has less destructive factors that the plankton has to fight off. The results from our test might mean that the water in Kihei is cleaner, less polluted, and a better place for plankton to be found. This study was important, because it’s good to know how the plankton is a part in the ecosystem. Maui, being surrounded in water, is covered in plankton; we should know the plankton population where we live. Plankton rules the world!!!

We thought that there would be more plankton in Ho'okipa, because it is not in a polluted area, it is cooler than Kihei, and the boat ramp seemed like it would be more polluted because of boats going in and out. As you know, we were wrong, there was actually more plankton at the Kihei boat ramp. This could be because there are less people in the water.