November 20, 2024 • 25 mins
Curious about the hidden dynamics of Hawaii’s grasslands? Join us as we speak with Kevin Basienda, a passionate graduate researcher from the University of Hawaii, who has embarked on a mission to map out the lush yet invasive grass species across the islands. Intrigued by the complexities of these plant invaders, Kevin's journey led him to create the Hawaii Grass Atlas, a treasure trove of information featuring over 280 grass species. Through innovative data collection methods, including roadside surveys and the invaluable input from citizen scientists on platforms like iNaturalist, Kevin sheds light on the importance of making this wealth of information accessible to landowners and producers striving to manage their landscapes more effectively.
Ever wondered how fire-promoting grasses could alter the Hawaiian ecosystem? In this conversation, Kevin unveils the significant efforts behind documenting these fiery culprits using GIS data and enriched historical records. He introduces us to some captivating hybrids, such as Kentris paragrinus and a unique Chloris species hybrid found in Oahu, exploring their potential impacts on the environment. Through this engaging episode, we also delve into how iNaturalist serves as a powerful tool for community engagement, transforming nature exploration into a collective endeavor. Whether you’re a botanist at heart or simply intrigued by the natural world, this episode promises an insightful look into the challenges and beauty of managing Hawaii’s grass species.
Resources Mentioned:
- Hawaii Grass Atlas: http://mauu.net/atlas/
- iNaturalist: https://www.inaturalist.org/
- Kevin Faccenda Contact Info: faccenda@hawaii.edu
Thanks for listening! Check out our other social media platforms!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Aloha.
Today's episode is sponsored bythe Livestock Extension Group
out of the University of HawaiiManoa College of Tropical
Agriculture and Human Resources,the Center for Ag Profitability
out of the University ofNebraska-Lincoln and the Western
Sustainable AgricultureResearch and Education Program.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Aloha and welcome to the Livestock Bala'au, a podcast
aimed to provide educationalsupport, information, guidance
and outreach to our livestockstakeholders.
We are your hosts, melio Shiroand Shannon Sand, and today we
are talking with Kevin Basienda,with the University of Hawaii,
and I'm going to let him give alittle bit introduction about
(00:51):
him and his position and, yeah,what we'll be talking about
today.
So thank you, kevin, forjoining us and taking time today
to talk story.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
Thank you for inviting me.
So I'm Kevin.
I'm a graduate researcher atUniversity of Hawaii, at Onewa,
so I started at University ofHawaii about four years ago now.
So I have been at University ofHawaii getting my PhD in
(01:21):
invasive species effectivelybeen my research.
So when I got here, I justwanted to study invasive species
generally and Hawaii seemed tobe a great spot to do that more
invasive species than most otherplaces of the world and so when
I got here, my advisor pushedme towards grasses because he
(01:42):
knew that this group needed abit more attention and obviously
they're a hugely ecologicallyimportant part of the island,
covering about a third of all ofthe land of the islands at this
point, and he was pointing outthat there's some issues with
that are like the data thatexists about where they grow and
(02:02):
like their identities, evenlike what species are growing
across the landscape.
So I started I decided to takethat on as as my project to try
and kind of clean up the dataabout grasses in hawaii.
So I started coming to thebishop museum and they have a
large grass plant collectioncalled a herbarium here I'm
(02:25):
actually at the Bishop Museumright now as we speak, but they
have this large collection ofabout 10,000 dried breast plants
, going all the way back to thelate 1800s, so you can look at
these specimens and see how theflora has changed over time,
when species are starting tocome in, and you can travel the
islands without leaving the room.
(02:46):
You can look at specimens fromPuna or Niihau or wherever
across the island just bypulling stuff out of the cabinet
, and so that's really usefulfor confirming identities and
updating distributions, becausemaybe there's something that
somebody collected in 1970, andthey just knew it was a grass,
(03:06):
but then I'd come along and say,oh, that's this specific grass,
that's andropogon, and so I canidentify that and say, oh,
that's never been recorded onKauai before, so that's a new
record, so we can date the listof grasses, and that's kind of
how this project began.
Very cool, very cool.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
So tell us a little bit more about this project,
because this, I mean this soundsreally interesting like
cataloging all of the differentlike grass species.
I mean, honestly, I can'timagine I feel a little
overwhelmed thinking about it.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
For you to be fair, yeah, so when I started this
work I was just publishing thesekind of technical report papers
saying there's a new grass onKauai, a new one on Big Island
and kind of so on, justenumerating these grasses.
A lot of them didn't havephotos in the publications.
It was not really for a kind ofsuper general audience, it was
(04:05):
more of a technical thing, andso all of that data was
available.
But I wanted to make it moreeasily interpretable.
So after three rounds of thosethat his paper is updating grass
distributions, I decided tomake a website.
So that website is melunetslash atlas, or if you Google
Hawaii Grass Atlas, it should bethe first result.
(04:27):
It has been recently, and sothis website has maps of all of
the grasses that are currentlyknown to be growing wild in
Hawaii, including natives, sothere's about 280 species
featured on the website.
There's a few grasses there'slike 40 or so that haven't been
(04:47):
seen in the past 50 years.
Some of them might still bearound.
Some of them, or most of them,are probably probably died off.
Those ones aren't included inthe website.
So there's the chance you couldfind something growing on the
landscape that isn't on thewebsite, but it's probably
unlikely.
And then.
So there's these maps acrossthe islands.
These maps are based on datafrom roadside surveys.
(05:10):
So over the past three yearsI've been going around the
islands, I've made it to most ofthe islands, doing these
roadside-based surveys, where Ipull over every mile or so and
record all of the grasses thatare growing on the on the side
of the road, and so that data isall on the website, as well as
data from the museum with theherbarium specimens, as well as
(05:33):
data from a vegetation plot.
So, like, the national parkshave an extensive network of
vegetation plots where theyrecord all of these, these
grasses and trees and everything, as well as data from from
citizen science, like websiteslike iNaturalist, which I think
we'll talk a bit about later,and so all of that data kind of
got bundled up together.
I cleaned up all of the messynames and the points that are in
(05:56):
the middle of the ocean and allof that and but these, these
maps up on the website, and thenthe website also has photos of
every grass so you can comparethe map, compare the photo and
see if the area matches whereyou are.
And if the photo matches, thenit's in help with grass
identification.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Yeah, that's amazing.
I think that it's nice to havethis sole source of where we can
go to kind of search and lookfor it.
There's so many different ones,and I guess that was my thing
was how can we share this now sothat producers can sort of use
the information that's there,whether it's identification or
just finding out moreinformation about the grasses
(06:39):
that are in their property?
Speaker 4 (06:41):
So this website.
I designed it to make it aseasily accessible as possible.
So, in addition to having allof these maps, there's also
filters.
So say you're on Maui, you canfilter all of the grasses on
Maui and then you can sub-filterthat down and say that you know
this grass.
You only want to look atgrasses that are clump-forming.
You don't want to look atgrasses with rhizomes or stolons
(07:03):
or anything like that.
You can filter by grasses onMaui that just have stolons or
that are just clump forming, aswell as based on shape, like
inflorescence characters If youhave a flower head, whether it's
like a panicle or a spike orlike a bracteose panicle, like
an andropogon.
So I tried to make it asfilterable as possible and for
(07:24):
use cases I imagine some of themain ones will be I'm not sure
like weed identification you cansee what weeds are potentially
going to expand into your area,stuff like wiregrass or
andropogon bicordis or otherweedy andropogon type grasses.
You can see where they currentlyare and for a bunch of the
(07:46):
grasses for about 140 of them,so about half I've also used
climate data to predict whatareas are climatically suitable
for these grasses, so you cansee where they currently are and
what areas they might expandinto.
So these maps use rainfall dataand temperature data and it kind
of predicts that kind of usinga machine learning approach to
(08:09):
see what areas are going to besuitable in the current climate
conditions for these grasses.
So this kind of ignores theecology of the grasses.
So it'll say that shadetolerant or like species that
only grow in shade, like Ohno,would be able to occur at areas
that are sunny.
So it doesn't know about siteconditions, it just knows about
(08:30):
temperature and moisture.
So suppose there was a forest,it would be suitable, but if
it's an open pasture then itprobably wouldn't.
And it also doesn't know aboutother grasses which would
outcompete things.
There are plenty of grasseswhich are suitable at certain
areas, but the areas arecurrently covered by guinea
grass which would shade them out.
So it knows about, it doesn'tknow about site conditions, but
(08:52):
it knows what areas are possiblefor the grass to grow, given
the right site conditions, andso that that, I think, will be.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Is that something you're potentially going to ask
that in the future is siteconditions conditions.
Kevin, sorry to interrupt you.
Speaker 4 (09:05):
I don't think so.
It's too fine scale data that Idon't think it would kind of
last very long.
So like, say, I were to getdata from 24 and then say that
an area burns down or something,then all of a sudden the site
conditions are changed and thatmap goes out the window.
So I think I'm going to keep itjust based on climate.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
True.
Okay, I don't know if you saidthis or not, but do you have it
linked into any type ofnutritional quality for the
forages or grasses that are onthere?
Speaker 4 (09:35):
Not yet.
That's something that I'mthinking I might include in the
future.
So this is currently the secondversion of the atlas.
I'm going to keep adding tothis after I graduate, adding in
more information.
So right now it's the maps.
There's a few basic facts aboutthe grasses, like whether it's
(09:57):
native, whether it's a coolseason grass or a warm season
grass, the year it wasintroduced to hawaii, things
like that.
But then then oh, and alsodescriptions.
So I have like scientificdescriptions, measuring, like
the height of the grass and allof the characters, of the width
of the leaves and all of thosekind of nitty gritty, the size
(10:18):
of the spikelets, all of thosecharacters.
But I want to add in moreecological information.
But I want to add in moreecological information, so like
the palatability information andwell, it's like fire
characteristics and soilpreferences and things like that
, and that's that's eventuallygoing to happen.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
I don't have a timeline for it though.
Yeah, so is OK.
I don't know if you stated thisearlier, but is this grant
funded as part of your graduateprogram or is this just
something you're superinterested in, so kind of
started on your own?
I'm sorry, I might have missedthat part earlier.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
So this is not a grant funded product.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
So that the Web site itself is, I'm hosting it by
myself with my own like webserver and everything, but it
was wow.
Okay, that's amazing.
I would imagine a lot of peoplewould be interested in this
information yeah, so so nobody.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
So I had funding for the roadside surveys for looking
for new fire promoting grasses.
So that was the the main partof this that was funded.
But in terms of the development, that was all in my free time,
because we just don't have goodinformation about grasses in
Hawaii Like before that MRCSpublication came out earlier
(11:37):
last year?
No, they don't, that's why Ithink this is an amazing
resource.
Yeah, so I wanted to try tofill that in.
I mean, there is a lot ofoverlap with my research.
Like all of the islanddistributions, all of the GIS
data was made for one of myother projects, so it was not
too much work.
(11:57):
It was a lot of work, but itwasn't too much work to throw it
all together on this website.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
I think it's a great resource, though, to be able to
have it all together.
We do have a lot of historicallike you, like you said
information, but nothing that'sbeen updated with colored photos
which help through some of thedrawings that you see in some of
the publications.
It's not so easy to match andidentify sometimes, so it's nice
to have updated photos andimages for things and such.
(12:24):
I want to just ask I think whenI spoke to you previously, we
talked a little bit about one ofthe hybrids and we want to talk
a little bit about the hybridthat we mentioned with Kikuyu
and the fountain grass, becauseyou had a part in that naming
convention, correct?
Speaker 4 (12:39):
Yeah, so that was one of the grasses that I found it
on a roadside survey on the oldsaddle road, irwimea.
I was initially very confusedas to what it was.
I was trying to identify it.
I couldn't come up withanything and then I just kind of
forgot about it for a littlebit.
And then I stumbled upon aspecimen in the herbarium which
(13:00):
was filed as fountain grass andit was saying it was a hybrid.
I was like oh wow, that's theexact same thing that I found.
And then I realized that peoplehad known about this hybrid for
at least 40 years.
At this point there's aspecimen in the museum going
back to the late 80s and nobodyhad ever documented it.
I kind of like wrote it down.
(13:22):
It seems like most of theinformation about it seems to be
kind of oral, passed along likethat.
So I did some genetics on it,trying to figure out what's
going on.
So it looks like the Kikuyu isthe female parent and then
Fountain is the male parent,which kind of makes sense
because Fountain Grass hasreally weird genetics.
(13:47):
Fountain grass is actually atriploid grass, which is very
unusual as far as becausetriploids are generally sterile,
so, like bananas, they don'thave seeds because they're
triploid, because they can't,like at the cellular level, make
seeds, because they have thewrong number of chromosomes.
But fountain grass is able tomake seeds effectively asexually
(14:11):
.
So I think there's a study like10 years ago looking at
fountain grass on the big islandand they found that it's all
basically genetically identicalbecause it just keeps cloning
itself and it doesn't actuallylike breed, doesn't actually
outcross, which is really weird.
But it makes sense why it wouldbe the male parent and the
kikuyu because it can't makeseed would be the, the female
(14:33):
parent.
And then I only was able to lookat one clump in terms of
looking for seeds.
I didn't manage to find anyseeds on that plant.
They are all empty, emptyflowers.
So it looks like it's sterile,which is what everybody,
everybody says.
But it it is possible that thatsomething weird could happen in
(14:54):
the future.
They're, they're documentedcases of hybrid grasses.
All of a sudden they likedouble their chromosomes or
something and boom, they're,they're fertile and they start
pumping out seed.
And that happened with a, witha salt marsh grass in the in the
british islands, and then thatwas a really bad invasive
actually like.
But no idea what'll happen here.
(15:17):
It looks like it'll.
It's currently sterile, but whoknows how that'll long.
And then I ended up using thegrass Kentris paragrinus, or, as
the hybrid, kentris Xparagrinus.
So now it has an official name,in addition to the joy grass
name, I guess is what somepeople call it, or the mountain
(15:37):
hybrid, or kikuyu hybrid.
It seems like it has a bunch ofnames, yeah.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Oh yeah, I thought that was really cool.
Yeah, but it makes it theusable forage at that point
right when it becomes a hybrid,because the cattle do like to
graze it much more than theywon't touch the fountain grass
yeah, the leaves are.
Oh well, thank you that.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
Yeah, I thought that was really interesting when you
talk about that, yeah, there wasanother grass too that I also
named as a hybrid, which is ahybrid between two Chloris
species, between stargrass andthe kind of Chloris barbata,
that weedy one that grows in dryareas.
(16:18):
That one was found on Oahu, butit's probably on other islands
too.
That one would be really hardto ID in the field, though it
looks really similar to other,not to the stargrass.
I'm kind of interested thatthese invasive species are
hybridizing.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
So you mentioned quickly earlier too about
another program that can helpwith plant ID iNaturalist.
You want to talk a little bitabout that program?
Speaker 4 (16:43):
Yeah, so iNaturalist is a website.
It's kind of a nonprofit typeof thing.
So there's an app, there's awebsite and the purpose is to
connect people with nature bykind of learning about the
plants.
So it's one way to think about.
It is like Pokemon, but forbiology.
(17:04):
So you can take a picture of aplant on your phone and then
there's a AI that'll use thepicture from your camera to
suggest what plant you actuallytook a picture of.
So then you can catalog thatplant, upload it to the website
and then, once it goes onto thewebsite, the identification gets
confirmed by volunteers.
(17:26):
So if you find like somethingunknown growing wherever, you
can take a picture of it andthen if the AI will suggest
something it might not be right.
It tends to be about 90%accurate in Hawaii with plants,
which is pretty good as far aslike.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
That's pretty good, considering the variety of
species yeah, it's, it's not.
Speaker 4 (17:50):
It's not quite as good with like native speed,
with like rare native species orcultivated things, but if
you're looking at somethingthat's growing wild or at like
common natives, it's really goodwith those.
And then you can also, if youknow it, the AI suggestion is
wrong you can just put inwhatever name that you already
know it is, and then it goes tovolunteers who will confirm the
(18:15):
identity.
So I review all of the grassesand plants and sedges and
basically all of the terrestrialplants that are posted across
the islands of Hawaii, and sopeople post all sorts of stuff,
from Belgateria trees to Chinesehibiscus growing in front of
(18:35):
hotels and everything in between, and so I go through and
confirm all of thoseidentifications and help people
out by fixing mistakenidentities, and that's a really
useful tool for learning aboutthe plants in an area, because
there's just this kind of global.
This isn't a Hawaii.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
I feel like plant ID is just so difficult.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
Yeah, yeah, and it's not just a Hawaii-based, I just
imagine it's being real, it'sglobal.
So there's like experts thatlive in, live in like germany or
new zealand or whatever, andthen they'll identify plants
across the the world.
So there's some people whoidentify eucalyptus who live in
australia, so like they knowwhat they're talking about when
(19:20):
they identify eucalyptus.
So it's a really great, greatplatform to interact with other
people who are interested in innature and just learn about the
species that are growing in yourin your area.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
So is it like a phone app or is it like a web
application where you go to likeiNaturalistcom or org?
I'm?
We'll put it in the show notesfor sure, whatever it is, but
yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:44):
Yeah, so there's phone apps for Android and
iPhone.
I personally think the websiteis a bit better.
It's a little bit.
I think the interface is a bitless clunky on the website, but
you can just take a photo onyour phone and then upload it on
the website or you can justupload it directly in the phone
(20:05):
app and you'll usually get an IDback from a volunteer within a
couple days of posting.
And another reason I really likethis is that a lot of the data
for the Atlas has came from thiswebsite.
So there's like 20,000 photosof points of grasses in Hawaii
(20:26):
and some of these are areas thatI have people haven't surveyed
recently, like there's novegetation blots or anything.
So, like iNaturalist is theonly kind of data source filling
in some of these points on themaps on my website, which has
been an amazing source of databecause there's so much of it
and the fact that it's all kindof open source.
(20:48):
Like you can see the photo anddouble check that it's actually
what they say it is.
So I can confirm that, oh, thiswas fountain grass or this was
Anthropogon virginicus orwhatever species they say it is.
It's all confirmable and it'salso used by other scientists as
well.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
It's super useful nice right, and this is like
just open source volunteer runyeah, it's all.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
It's a non-profit, so there's the kind of parent
company that runs all of it.
The volunteers who identify theeverything that's posted are
kind of the, the backbone, thewhole thing oh nice.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
So anyone who has questions, if they're walking
through a field and not surewhat something is, they could
just take a picture and thenupload it to the website when
they get to somewhere they havesignal.
If that doesn't have signal, orif they have signal there, they
can upload you know.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Yeah, I was going to say because I've used
iNaturalist for things and it'snice because if you don't know
like you might not know, you'refamiliar with the plant but you
don't know the family or whatnotit kind of puts you in there.
Then you can furtherinvestigate whatever plant it is
.
So, yeah, and I submittedthings before that I weren't
sure about or whatnot, and gotback information.
(22:04):
So yeah, it's great, whatnotand got back information.
So, but yeah, it's, it's great,it's, it's cool to see that it
you know that there arescientists behind there that's
helping with the id and stuffand I think it's a good tool to
be able to help you furtheridentify things that are in your
in your property and, just youknow, gather another resource
for you to gather moreinformation about things.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
So it's also ads free which is oh wow, that's kind of
miraculous yeah, we, we did.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
I worked with a collaborator doing a study kind
of comparing the different appsthat are currently on the app
store for plant id and all ofthe other apps.
They're, first of all, they'renot as good in hawaii.
They're better in temperateareas, but in terms of the
they're not as good in.
Hawaii.
They're better in temperateareas, but in terms of the ads,
they're just horrendous, whereasiNaturalist is all supported by
(22:53):
donations, so no ads on there,which is a big plus.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Nice.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
Well, is there anything else you'd like to
share, Kevin, about the workyou're doing about the Hawaii
Grass Atlas?
Speaker 4 (23:08):
In terms of the Atlas .
If you have any questions aboutgrasses, you can shoot me an
email.
My contact info is on there.
Or if you want help with grassIDs on iNaturalist, my username
is at Kevin Vicenda, it's justmy full name.
So if you tag me on somethingon there I can take a look and
(23:28):
any suggestions for futuredevelopment of the Atlas are
appreciated.
I'm going to keep working on it, keep expanding it, add more
photos, update the maps and anyways I could make it more usable
.
I intend to do that.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Nice.
I took a scan through thereearlier today and I was like I
mean, granted, I'm prettyignorant on just grasses in
general, as Mele can attest to,but I thought it was fairly easy
to navigate.
So good job.
Yeah, all right.
Well, thank you so much forjoining us today.
We hope our listeners foundthis informative and that it
(24:05):
will be useful to them.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
We hope our listeners found this informative and that
it'll be useful to them.
Yeah, make sure to follow us onour social media pages the
Livestock, Palau and LivestockExtension Group if you haven't
already, and be sure to visitthe UHC TAR Extension website
and our YouTube channel Foradditional information about
this topic, see those show notesof the podcast and the
description box of our YouTubepage.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Thanks for listening to the Livestock Palau.
Before we go, show some lovefor your favorite podcast by
leaving us a review anywhere youlisten to this and then stay
tuned for next month's episodeno-transcript.
Aloha.
Today's episode is sponsored bythe Livestock Extension Group
out of the University of HawaiiManoa College of Tropical
Agriculture and Human Resources,the Center for Ag Profitability
out of the University ofNebraska-Lincoln and the Western
Sustainable AgricultureResearch and Education Program.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Aloha and welcome to the Livestock Bala'au, a podcast
aimed to provide educationalsupport, information, guidance
and outreach to our livestockstakeholders.
We are your hosts, melio Shiroand Shannon Sand, and today we
are talking with Kevin Basienda,with the University of Hawaii,
and I'm going to let him give alittle bit introduction about
(00:51):
him and his position and, yeah,what we'll be talking about
today.
So thank you, kevin, forjoining us and taking time today
to talk story.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
Thank you for inviting me.
So I'm Kevin.
I'm a graduate researcher atUniversity of Hawaii, at Onewa,
so I started at University ofHawaii about four years ago now.
So I have been at University ofHawaii getting my PhD in
(01:21):
invasive species effectivelybeen my research.
So when I got here, I justwanted to study invasive species
generally and Hawaii seemed tobe a great spot to do that more
invasive species than most otherplaces of the world and so when
I got here, my advisor pushedme towards grasses because he
(01:42):
knew that this group needed abit more attention and obviously
they're a hugely ecologicallyimportant part of the island,
covering about a third of all ofthe land of the islands at this
point, and he was pointing outthat there's some issues with
that are like the data thatexists about where they grow and
(02:02):
like their identities, evenlike what species are growing
across the landscape.
So I started I decided to takethat on as as my project to try
and kind of clean up the dataabout grasses in hawaii.
So I started coming to thebishop museum and they have a
large grass plant collectioncalled a herbarium here I'm
(02:25):
actually at the Bishop Museumright now as we speak, but they
have this large collection ofabout 10,000 dried breast plants
, going all the way back to thelate 1800s, so you can look at
these specimens and see how theflora has changed over time,
when species are starting tocome in, and you can travel the
islands without leaving the room.
(02:46):
You can look at specimens fromPuna or Niihau or wherever
across the island just bypulling stuff out of the cabinet
, and so that's really usefulfor confirming identities and
updating distributions, becausemaybe there's something that
somebody collected in 1970, andthey just knew it was a grass,
(03:06):
but then I'd come along and say,oh, that's this specific grass,
that's andropogon, and so I canidentify that and say, oh,
that's never been recorded onKauai before, so that's a new
record, so we can date the listof grasses, and that's kind of
how this project began.
Very cool, very cool.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
So tell us a little bit more about this project,
because this, I mean this soundsreally interesting like
cataloging all of the differentlike grass species.
I mean, honestly, I can'timagine I feel a little
overwhelmed thinking about it.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
For you to be fair, yeah, so when I started this
work I was just publishing thesekind of technical report papers
saying there's a new grass onKauai, a new one on Big Island
and kind of so on, justenumerating these grasses.
A lot of them didn't havephotos in the publications.
It was not really for a kind ofsuper general audience, it was
(04:05):
more of a technical thing, andso all of that data was
available.
But I wanted to make it moreeasily interpretable.
So after three rounds of thosethat his paper is updating grass
distributions, I decided tomake a website.
So that website is melunetslash atlas, or if you Google
Hawaii Grass Atlas, it should bethe first result.
(04:27):
It has been recently, and sothis website has maps of all of
the grasses that are currentlyknown to be growing wild in
Hawaii, including natives, sothere's about 280 species
featured on the website.
There's a few grasses there'slike 40 or so that haven't been
(04:47):
seen in the past 50 years.
Some of them might still bearound.
Some of them, or most of them,are probably probably died off.
Those ones aren't included inthe website.
So there's the chance you couldfind something growing on the
landscape that isn't on thewebsite, but it's probably
unlikely.
And then.
So there's these maps acrossthe islands.
These maps are based on datafrom roadside surveys.
(05:10):
So over the past three yearsI've been going around the
islands, I've made it to most ofthe islands, doing these
roadside-based surveys, where Ipull over every mile or so and
record all of the grasses thatare growing on the on the side
of the road, and so that data isall on the website, as well as
data from the museum with theherbarium specimens, as well as
(05:33):
data from a vegetation plot.
So, like, the national parkshave an extensive network of
vegetation plots where theyrecord all of these, these
grasses and trees and everything, as well as data from from
citizen science, like websiteslike iNaturalist, which I think
we'll talk a bit about later,and so all of that data kind of
got bundled up together.
I cleaned up all of the messynames and the points that are in
(05:56):
the middle of the ocean and allof that and but these, these
maps up on the website, and thenthe website also has photos of
every grass so you can comparethe map, compare the photo and
see if the area matches whereyou are.
And if the photo matches, thenit's in help with grass
identification.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Yeah, that's amazing.
I think that it's nice to havethis sole source of where we can
go to kind of search and lookfor it.
There's so many different ones,and I guess that was my thing
was how can we share this now sothat producers can sort of use
the information that's there,whether it's identification or
just finding out moreinformation about the grasses
(06:39):
that are in their property?
Speaker 4 (06:41):
So this website.
I designed it to make it aseasily accessible as possible.
So, in addition to having allof these maps, there's also
filters.
So say you're on Maui, you canfilter all of the grasses on
Maui and then you can sub-filterthat down and say that you know
this grass.
You only want to look atgrasses that are clump-forming.
You don't want to look atgrasses with rhizomes or stolons
(07:03):
or anything like that.
You can filter by grasses onMaui that just have stolons or
that are just clump forming, aswell as based on shape, like
inflorescence characters If youhave a flower head, whether it's
like a panicle or a spike orlike a bracteose panicle, like
an andropogon.
So I tried to make it asfilterable as possible and for
(07:24):
use cases I imagine some of themain ones will be I'm not sure
like weed identification you cansee what weeds are potentially
going to expand into your area,stuff like wiregrass or
andropogon bicordis or otherweedy andropogon type grasses.
You can see where they currentlyare and for a bunch of the
(07:46):
grasses for about 140 of them,so about half I've also used
climate data to predict whatareas are climatically suitable
for these grasses, so you cansee where they currently are and
what areas they might expandinto.
So these maps use rainfall dataand temperature data and it kind
of predicts that kind of usinga machine learning approach to
(08:09):
see what areas are going to besuitable in the current climate
conditions for these grasses.
So this kind of ignores theecology of the grasses.
So it'll say that shadetolerant or like species that
only grow in shade, like Ohno,would be able to occur at areas
that are sunny.
So it doesn't know about siteconditions, it just knows about
(08:30):
temperature and moisture.
So suppose there was a forest,it would be suitable, but if
it's an open pasture then itprobably wouldn't.
And it also doesn't know aboutother grasses which would
outcompete things.
There are plenty of grasseswhich are suitable at certain
areas, but the areas arecurrently covered by guinea
grass which would shade them out.
So it knows about, it doesn'tknow about site conditions, but
(08:52):
it knows what areas are possiblefor the grass to grow, given
the right site conditions, andso that that, I think, will be.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Is that something you're potentially going to ask
that in the future is siteconditions conditions.
Kevin, sorry to interrupt you.
Speaker 4 (09:05):
I don't think so.
It's too fine scale data that Idon't think it would kind of
last very long.
So like, say, I were to getdata from 24 and then say that
an area burns down or something,then all of a sudden the site
conditions are changed and thatmap goes out the window.
So I think I'm going to keep itjust based on climate.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
True.
Okay, I don't know if you saidthis or not, but do you have it
linked into any type ofnutritional quality for the
forages or grasses that are onthere?
Speaker 4 (09:35):
Not yet.
That's something that I'mthinking I might include in the
future.
So this is currently the secondversion of the atlas.
I'm going to keep adding tothis after I graduate, adding in
more information.
So right now it's the maps.
There's a few basic facts aboutthe grasses, like whether it's
(09:57):
native, whether it's a coolseason grass or a warm season
grass, the year it wasintroduced to hawaii, things
like that.
But then then oh, and alsodescriptions.
So I have like scientificdescriptions, measuring, like
the height of the grass and allof the characters, of the width
of the leaves and all of thosekind of nitty gritty, the size
(10:18):
of the spikelets, all of thosecharacters.
But I want to add in moreecological information.
But I want to add in moreecological information, so like
the palatability information andwell, it's like fire
characteristics and soilpreferences and things like that
, and that's that's eventuallygoing to happen.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
I don't have a timeline for it though.
Yeah, so is OK.
I don't know if you stated thisearlier, but is this grant
funded as part of your graduateprogram or is this just
something you're superinterested in, so kind of
started on your own?
I'm sorry, I might have missedthat part earlier.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
So this is not a grant funded product.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
So that the Web site itself is, I'm hosting it by
myself with my own like webserver and everything, but it
was wow.
Okay, that's amazing.
I would imagine a lot of peoplewould be interested in this
information yeah, so so nobody.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
So I had funding for the roadside surveys for looking
for new fire promoting grasses.
So that was the the main partof this that was funded.
But in terms of the development, that was all in my free time,
because we just don't have goodinformation about grasses in
Hawaii Like before that MRCSpublication came out earlier
(11:37):
last year?
No, they don't, that's why Ithink this is an amazing
resource.
Yeah, so I wanted to try tofill that in.
I mean, there is a lot ofoverlap with my research.
Like all of the islanddistributions, all of the GIS
data was made for one of myother projects, so it was not
too much work.
(11:57):
It was a lot of work, but itwasn't too much work to throw it
all together on this website.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
I think it's a great resource, though, to be able to
have it all together.
We do have a lot of historicallike you, like you said
information, but nothing that'sbeen updated with colored photos
which help through some of thedrawings that you see in some of
the publications.
It's not so easy to match andidentify sometimes, so it's nice
to have updated photos andimages for things and such.
(12:24):
I want to just ask I think whenI spoke to you previously, we
talked a little bit about one ofthe hybrids and we want to talk
a little bit about the hybridthat we mentioned with Kikuyu
and the fountain grass, becauseyou had a part in that naming
convention, correct?
Speaker 4 (12:39):
Yeah, so that was one of the grasses that I found it
on a roadside survey on the oldsaddle road, irwimea.
I was initially very confusedas to what it was.
I was trying to identify it.
I couldn't come up withanything and then I just kind of
forgot about it for a littlebit.
And then I stumbled upon aspecimen in the herbarium which
(13:00):
was filed as fountain grass andit was saying it was a hybrid.
I was like oh wow, that's theexact same thing that I found.
And then I realized that peoplehad known about this hybrid for
at least 40 years.
At this point there's aspecimen in the museum going
back to the late 80s and nobodyhad ever documented it.
I kind of like wrote it down.
(13:22):
It seems like most of theinformation about it seems to be
kind of oral, passed along likethat.
So I did some genetics on it,trying to figure out what's
going on.
So it looks like the Kikuyu isthe female parent and then
Fountain is the male parent,which kind of makes sense
because Fountain Grass hasreally weird genetics.
(13:47):
Fountain grass is actually atriploid grass, which is very
unusual as far as becausetriploids are generally sterile,
so, like bananas, they don'thave seeds because they're
triploid, because they can't,like at the cellular level, make
seeds, because they have thewrong number of chromosomes.
But fountain grass is able tomake seeds effectively asexually
(14:11):
.
So I think there's a study like10 years ago looking at
fountain grass on the big islandand they found that it's all
basically genetically identicalbecause it just keeps cloning
itself and it doesn't actuallylike breed, doesn't actually
outcross, which is really weird.
But it makes sense why it wouldbe the male parent and the
kikuyu because it can't makeseed would be the, the female
(14:33):
parent.
And then I only was able to lookat one clump in terms of
looking for seeds.
I didn't manage to find anyseeds on that plant.
They are all empty, emptyflowers.
So it looks like it's sterile,which is what everybody,
everybody says.
But it it is possible that thatsomething weird could happen in
(14:54):
the future.
They're, they're documentedcases of hybrid grasses.
All of a sudden they likedouble their chromosomes or
something and boom, they're,they're fertile and they start
pumping out seed.
And that happened with a, witha salt marsh grass in the in the
british islands, and then thatwas a really bad invasive
actually like.
But no idea what'll happen here.
(15:17):
It looks like it'll.
It's currently sterile, but whoknows how that'll long.
And then I ended up using thegrass Kentris paragrinus, or, as
the hybrid, kentris Xparagrinus.
So now it has an official name,in addition to the joy grass
name, I guess is what somepeople call it, or the mountain
(15:37):
hybrid, or kikuyu hybrid.
It seems like it has a bunch ofnames, yeah.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Oh yeah, I thought that was really cool.
Yeah, but it makes it theusable forage at that point
right when it becomes a hybrid,because the cattle do like to
graze it much more than theywon't touch the fountain grass
yeah, the leaves are.
Oh well, thank you that.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
Yeah, I thought that was really interesting when you
talk about that, yeah, there wasanother grass too that I also
named as a hybrid, which is ahybrid between two Chloris
species, between stargrass andthe kind of Chloris barbata,
that weedy one that grows in dryareas.
(16:18):
That one was found on Oahu, butit's probably on other islands
too.
That one would be really hardto ID in the field, though it
looks really similar to other,not to the stargrass.
I'm kind of interested thatthese invasive species are
hybridizing.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
So you mentioned quickly earlier too about
another program that can helpwith plant ID iNaturalist.
You want to talk a little bitabout that program?
Speaker 4 (16:43):
Yeah, so iNaturalist is a website.
It's kind of a nonprofit typeof thing.
So there's an app, there's awebsite and the purpose is to
connect people with nature bykind of learning about the
plants.
So it's one way to think about.
It is like Pokemon, but forbiology.
(17:04):
So you can take a picture of aplant on your phone and then
there's a AI that'll use thepicture from your camera to
suggest what plant you actuallytook a picture of.
So then you can catalog thatplant, upload it to the website
and then, once it goes onto thewebsite, the identification gets
confirmed by volunteers.
(17:26):
So if you find like somethingunknown growing wherever, you
can take a picture of it andthen if the AI will suggest
something it might not be right.
It tends to be about 90%accurate in Hawaii with plants,
which is pretty good as far aslike.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
That's pretty good, considering the variety of
species yeah, it's, it's not.
Speaker 4 (17:50):
It's not quite as good with like native speed,
with like rare native species orcultivated things, but if
you're looking at somethingthat's growing wild or at like
common natives, it's really goodwith those.
And then you can also, if youknow it, the AI suggestion is
wrong you can just put inwhatever name that you already
know it is, and then it goes tovolunteers who will confirm the
(18:15):
identity.
So I review all of the grassesand plants and sedges and
basically all of the terrestrialplants that are posted across
the islands of Hawaii, and sopeople post all sorts of stuff,
from Belgateria trees to Chinesehibiscus growing in front of
(18:35):
hotels and everything in between, and so I go through and
confirm all of thoseidentifications and help people
out by fixing mistakenidentities, and that's a really
useful tool for learning aboutthe plants in an area, because
there's just this kind of global.
This isn't a Hawaii.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
I feel like plant ID is just so difficult.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
Yeah, yeah, and it's not just a Hawaii-based, I just
imagine it's being real, it'sglobal.
So there's like experts thatlive in, live in like germany or
new zealand or whatever, andthen they'll identify plants
across the the world.
So there's some people whoidentify eucalyptus who live in
australia, so like they knowwhat they're talking about when
(19:20):
they identify eucalyptus.
So it's a really great, greatplatform to interact with other
people who are interested in innature and just learn about the
species that are growing in yourin your area.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
So is it like a phone app or is it like a web
application where you go to likeiNaturalistcom or org?
I'm?
We'll put it in the show notesfor sure, whatever it is, but
yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:44):
Yeah, so there's phone apps for Android and
iPhone.
I personally think the websiteis a bit better.
It's a little bit.
I think the interface is a bitless clunky on the website, but
you can just take a photo onyour phone and then upload it on
the website or you can justupload it directly in the phone
(20:05):
app and you'll usually get an IDback from a volunteer within a
couple days of posting.
And another reason I really likethis is that a lot of the data
for the Atlas has came from thiswebsite.
So there's like 20,000 photosof points of grasses in Hawaii
(20:26):
and some of these are areas thatI have people haven't surveyed
recently, like there's novegetation blots or anything.
So, like iNaturalist is theonly kind of data source filling
in some of these points on themaps on my website, which has
been an amazing source of databecause there's so much of it
and the fact that it's all kindof open source.
(20:48):
Like you can see the photo anddouble check that it's actually
what they say it is.
So I can confirm that, oh, thiswas fountain grass or this was
Anthropogon virginicus orwhatever species they say it is.
It's all confirmable and it'salso used by other scientists as
well.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
It's super useful nice right, and this is like
just open source volunteer runyeah, it's all.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
It's a non-profit, so there's the kind of parent
company that runs all of it.
The volunteers who identify theeverything that's posted are
kind of the, the backbone, thewhole thing oh nice.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
So anyone who has questions, if they're walking
through a field and not surewhat something is, they could
just take a picture and thenupload it to the website when
they get to somewhere they havesignal.
If that doesn't have signal, orif they have signal there, they
can upload you know.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Yeah, I was going to say because I've used
iNaturalist for things and it'snice because if you don't know
like you might not know, you'refamiliar with the plant but you
don't know the family or whatnotit kind of puts you in there.
Then you can furtherinvestigate whatever plant it is
.
So, yeah, and I submittedthings before that I weren't
sure about or whatnot, and gotback information.
(22:04):
So yeah, it's great, whatnotand got back information.
So, but yeah, it's, it's great,it's, it's cool to see that it
you know that there arescientists behind there that's
helping with the id and stuffand I think it's a good tool to
be able to help you furtheridentify things that are in your
in your property and, just youknow, gather another resource
for you to gather moreinformation about things.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
So it's also ads free which is oh wow, that's kind of
miraculous yeah, we, we did.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
I worked with a collaborator doing a study kind
of comparing the different appsthat are currently on the app
store for plant id and all ofthe other apps.
They're, first of all, they'renot as good in hawaii.
They're better in temperateareas, but in terms of the
they're not as good in.
Hawaii.
They're better in temperateareas, but in terms of the ads,
they're just horrendous, whereasiNaturalist is all supported by
(22:53):
donations, so no ads on there,which is a big plus.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Nice.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
Well, is there anything else you'd like to
share, Kevin, about the workyou're doing about the Hawaii
Grass Atlas?
Speaker 4 (23:08):
In terms of the Atlas .
If you have any questions aboutgrasses, you can shoot me an
email.
My contact info is on there.
Or if you want help with grassIDs on iNaturalist, my username
is at Kevin Vicenda, it's justmy full name.
So if you tag me on somethingon there I can take a look and
(23:28):
any suggestions for futuredevelopment of the Atlas are
appreciated.
I'm going to keep working on it, keep expanding it, add more
photos, update the maps and anyways I could make it more usable
.
I intend to do that.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Nice.
I took a scan through thereearlier today and I was like I
mean, granted, I'm prettyignorant on just grasses in
general, as Mele can attest to,but I thought it was fairly easy
to navigate.
So good job.
Yeah, all right.
Well, thank you so much forjoining us today.
We hope our listeners foundthis informative and that it
(24:05):
will be useful to them.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
We hope our listeners found this informative and that
it'll be useful to them.
Yeah, make sure to follow us onour social media pages the
Livestock, Palau and LivestockExtension Group if you haven't
already, and be sure to visitthe UHC TAR Extension website
and our YouTube channel Foradditional information about
this topic, see those show notesof the podcast and the
description box of our YouTubepage.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Thanks for listening to the Livestock Palau.
Before we go, show some lovefor your favorite podcast by
leaving us a review anywhere youlisten to this and then stay
tuned for next month's episodeno-transcript.
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