Wildlife Health and Extinction: Meet the Hawaiian Honeycreepers

Ecotasia - 2023-06-10

In the past century most of Hawaii's birds have gone extinct, or are on the edge of extinction. This is because of the introduction of avian malaria, which they have little or no immunity to. In this video I discuss how human activity impact wildlife health, making animals and plants sick, or even extinct.

Sources:
[1] Pratt, T. K. (2010). Conservation Biology of hawaiian forest birds: Implications for island avifauna. Yale University Press. 
[2] Samuel, M. D., Hobbelen, P. H., DeCastro, F., Ahumada, J. A., LaPointe, D. A., Atkinson, C. T., Woodworth, B. L., Hart, P. J., & Duffy, D. C. (2011). The dynamics, transmission, and population impacts of avian malaria in native hawaiian birds: A modeling approach. Ecological Applications, 21(8), 2960–2973. https://doi.org/10.1890/10-1311.1 
[3] Samuel, M. D., Woodworth, B. L., Atkinson, C. T., Hart, P. J., & LaPointe, D. A. (2015). Avian malaria in Hawaiian forest birds: Infection and population impacts across species and elevations. Ecosphere, 6(6). https://doi.org/10.1890/es14-00393.1 
 [4] Liao, W., Atkinson, C. T., LaPointe, D. A., & Samuel, M. D. (2017). Mitigating future avian malaria threats to Hawaiian forest birds from climate change. PLOS ONE, 12(1). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0168880 
[5] LaPointe, D. A., Goff, M. L., & Atkinson, C. T. (2010). Thermal constraints to the sporogonic development and altitudinal distribution of avian malaria plasmodium relictum in hawai'i. Journal of Parasitology, 96(2), 318–324. https://doi.org/10.1645/ge-2290.1 
 [6] Yong, E. (2018, January 17). Why did two-thirds of these weird antelope suddenly drop dead? The Atlantic. Retrieved March 22, 2023, from https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/01/why-did-two-thirds-of-this-weird-antelope-suddenly-drop-dead/550676/ 
[7] "Panama Amphibian Conservation Timeline". Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project. 
[8] Reeder, D. A. M., Frank, C. L., Turner, G. G., Meteyer, C. U., Kurta, A., Britzke, E. R., Vodzak, M. E., Darling, S. R., Stihler, C. W., Hicks, A. C., Jacob, R., Grieneisen, L. E., Brownlee, S. A., Muller, L. K., & Blehert, D. S. (2012). Frequent arousal from hibernation linked to severity of infection and mortality in bats with white-nose syndrome. PLoS ONE, 7(6). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0038920 
[9] "Parasite in cats killing sea otters". NOAA magazine. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 21 January 2003. Archived from the original on 25 December 2007.
[10] Berio Fortini, L., Kaiser, L. R., & LaPointe, D. A. (2020). Fostering real-time climate adaptation: Analyzing past, current, and forecast temperature to understand the dynamic risk to Hawaiian honeycreepers from avian malaria. Global Ecology and Conservation, 23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2020.e01069 
[11] LaPointe, D. A., Atkinson, C. T., & Samuel, M. D. (2012). Ecology and conservation biology of avian malaria. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1249(1), 211–226. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.2011.06431.x 
[12] Kilpatrick, A. M. (2006). Facilitating the evolution of resistance to avian malaria in Hawaiian birds. Biological Conservation, 128(4), 475–485. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2005.10.014 
[13] Barnes, I., Fourie, A., Wingfield, M. J., Harrington, T. C., McNew, D. L., Sugiyama, L. S., Luiz, B. C., Heller, W. P., & Keith, L. M. (2018). New ceratocystis species associated with rapid death of metrosideros polymorpha in hawai`i. Persoonia - Molecular Phylogeny and Evolution of Fungi, 40(1), 154–181. https://doi.org/10.3767/persoonia.2018.40.07 

0:00 Introduction
0:17 'I'iwi family
1:44 What are the Hawaiian Honeycreepers
3:14 How Malaria Kills
6:42 Other Diseases Killing Wildlife
8:55 Disease and Climate Change
11:39 How pigs make it all worse
12:11 It could get ever worse still
12:40 How to save the Hawaiian Honeycreepers
17:07 Biosecurity
18:35 Outro and Call to Action

I try to achieve the most well researched content I can, that said it is impossible to create content that is exhaustive on a given topic and therefore I implore you to investigate a given topic further.

Bird Playlist
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZqNM9k7OoY&list=PLYx5OP7sbAZACa11LD1wDQhn0SI2-SV1f

Conservation Playlist
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYx5OP7sbAZAIUm5UCl84q2KU2nI3YLpx

#learning #hawaii #mosquito