362 



Hawaii — Our Living Rcsoiiici'S 



In 1992 the Hawaii Slate Legislature estab- 

 lished a biological survey at Bishop 

 Museum. Hawaii's Museum of Natural and 

 Cultural History. The survey conducts an 

 ongoing natural history inventory of the 

 archipelago and locates, identifies, evalu- 

 ates, and maintains the reference collections 

 of all native and non-native species of flora 

 and fauna within the state. The survey works 

 in cooperation with other agencies, includ- 

 ing the Hawaii Heritage Program, various 

 state agencies, and the National Biological 

 Service. 



More than 14.000 terrestrial. 300 fresh- 

 water, and 4,000 marine species inhabit 

 Hawaii (Table 1 ). Bishop Museum maintains 

 the world's largest biological collections 

 for Hawaii (ca. 4,000.000 specimens; Table 

 2). Through the Hawaii Biological Survey 

 program, and in cooperation with many part- 

 ner organizations, the museum is organizing 

 information from these collections and asso- 

 ciated literature into comprehensive comput- 

 erized data bases and conducting field sur- 

 veys to document distributions of these 

 organisms. The resulting information base 



Tabic 1. Teneslrial ;ind freshwater plant and 

 animal species in Hawaii. In addition, another 

 4.000 marine organisms inhabit Hawaiian 

 waters. Species at risk include those on the fed- 

 eral lists of endangered, threatened, and candi- 

 date species (not including marine). 



Hawaii Biological Survey 



by 



Allen Allison 



Scott E. Miller 



Gordon M. Nishida 



Bishop Museum, Hawaii 



has many applications in conservation, agri- 

 culture, forestry, public health, fisheries, and 

 land management. 



In 1992 and 1993. the Hawaii Biological 

 Survey: 



• published a summary list of the more 

 than 8,600 species of Hawaiian insects 

 and related arthropods; 



• produced a catalog of Hawaiian land 

 snails, including nearly 1,000 species; 



• continued progress on the book series 

 Reef and Shore Fauna of Hawaii, with 

 another volume nearing completion; and 



• began a collaborative project with the 

 Smithsonian Institution and local agen- 

 cies to create a data base of specimens of 

 Hawaiian plants. Other plant projects in 

 progress include a manual of cultivated 

 plants in Hawaii (2,500 species treated in 

 detail, with an additional 10,000 species 

 evaluated); a manual of marine algae; 

 and an updated, electronic bibliography 

 of Hawaiian plants. 



A five-stage process was developed to 

 implement the biological survey. For each 

 major group of plants and animals, the process 

 involves developing a computerized literature 

 data base; preparing summary lists of species 

 names (checklists) based on the literature, col- 



Megalagrion pacificuni, a damseiliy in a genus 

 endemic to the Hawaiian Islands. 



lections, and consultation with experts; creat- 

 ing a data base of specimen information in our 

 collections; creating data bases of infonnation 

 from other collections and other sources or 

 establishing computer linkage to this informa- 

 tion; and filling gaps and updating informa- 

 tion through field surveys. 



Table 2. The comprehensive collections of 

 Bishop Museum are a core resource for the 

 Hawaii Biological Survey. This chart indicates 

 the relative sizes of the Hawaiian collections, 

 plus related materials from the Pacific region 

 and elsewhere that provide the context for under- 

 standing the Hawaiian hiota. 



For further information: 



Allen Allison 



Bishop Museum 



Box 19.000-A 



Honolulu, HI 96817 



are instead a diverse collection of alien invaders 

 that pose the biggest threat to the integrity of 

 Hawaii's native ecosystems. 



The alien species that have had the greatest 

 impact on Hawaii's fragile flora and fauna, how- 

 ever, are the ungulates (e.g., pigs, goats, sheep, 

 and cattle), which have devastated the native 

 plants that evolved in the absence of grazers and 

 browsers and thus had lost any protective mech- 

 anisms they might have had. Pigs have been par- 

 ticularly damaging, rooting through the under- 

 story. devastating large tracts of land, and creat- 

 ing a seedbed for alien plants and severe erosion, 

 especially on the steep slopes of older islands. 

 Elimination of alien species and prevention of 

 invasion by new non-native species are the first 

 conservation priority in Hawaii (Stone and Scott 

 1985; Stone et al. 1992). 



Status and trends of the amazingly diverse 

 insects of Hawaii are described by Howarth et al. 

 (this section). The case for using species of pic- 

 ture wing flies as monitors for change and evolu- 

 tion is made by Foote and Carson (this section), 

 while the dramatic recovery of a plant, the 

 Haleakala silversword (Loope and Medeiros, 

 this section), gives hope that other species can 

 respond to recovery efforts. There are lessons to 

 be learned not only from our failures, but also 

 from successes such as the silversword. 



Interest in the plants and aniinals of Hawaii 

 has rekindled in the last 20 years. Private, state, 

 and federal biologists have sought to document 

 the occurrence and abundance of species and 

 have inounted an impressive attempt to save the 

 remaining characters in this hotbed of evolution 

 (see Vol. 38 of BioScience and Culliney 1988 for 



