Lisa Komoroske Wins National Geographic Explorer Award to Study Hawaiian Sea Turtle Climate Resilience
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Lisa Komoroske, a professor in the College of Natural Sciences’s Department of Environmental Conservation, has been awarded a prestigious National Geographic Explorer award as part of the National Geographic Society’s American Keystone Species initiative, which focuses on working with species that hold particularly high cultural, economic, and ecological value.
As part of this initiative, Komoroske will be collaboratively leading a team working in the main Hawaiian Islands (MHI), partnering with the local community organization Mālama i nā Honu and regional stewards at the NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center to understand the future of honu, the Hawaiian green sea turtle, which is facing challenges of habitat loss and impacts of climate change. This project is titled "Protecting the Honu Legacy: Linking Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle Conservation with Community Stewardship."
“This award highlights the importance of the collaborative conservation research we do in the Environmental Conservation department at UMass Amherst,” says Komoroske. “And, it is a very exciting opportunity to join the National Geographic community to expand the impact of our work globally.”
In a press release from the National Geographic Society, chief science and innovation officer Ian Miller noted that “this inaugural cohort of Explorers represents 20 diverse projects across the United States and its territories, each focused on an iconic keystone species vital to our collective future.”
“Honu are a keystone species revered in Native Hawaiian culture (e.g. as aumākua, or ancestor spirits),” explains Komoroske. “Ecologically, they are ecosystem engineers shaping the structure and function of seagrass beds. Economically, honu are an iconic flagship species for ecotourism and conservation awareness.” Despite recovering from near-extinction in the 20th century, honu now face new challenges due to nesting habitat loss and the impacts of climate change.
Over 96% of honu nesting occurs at the remote Lalo Atoll in the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, far west of Hawaii’s most recognizable islands (such as the MHI). Unfortunately, Lalo is composed of low-lying islets that are rapidly degrading from erosion and intensifying storms, reducing nesting areas, and exposing hazardous remnant debris from WWII. Intriguingly, sporadic honu nesting in the MHI now appears to be increasing and could possibly offer climate refugia to enable honu persistence if Lalo is lost. But at present, the genetic origin of MHI nesting females is unknown, and, because sea turtles have temperature-dependent sex determination, it is unclear whether MHI nest temperatures produce skewed sex ratios that fail to promote population viability.
“We need to know the genetic origin of these turtles and thermal habitat suitability,” Komoroske asserts, “but because honu nesting on the MHI is widely scattered across large areas, it’s very challenging for scientists to accomplish alone. But by partnering with local community organizations with volunteers walking the beaches in the morning all around the island, we know when and where the turtles are nesting to collect genomic and environmental samples. This cooperative project is a first step in guiding conservation and securing the honu’s legacy.”
Komoroske believes that this work will serve as an example of how leveraging the power of community-led monitoring programs with conservation genomics can serve a larger ecological good. In addition, the novel genomic and epigenomic tools developed as part of this initiative can be applied beyond honu to understand the climate risk and resilience of sea turtles globally.
Learn more about National Geographic Society’s American Keystones initiative.