Our Honolulu
Ecologist finds clues in Hawai'i

By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist

Among the 20 top U.S. scientists named in this week's issue of Time magazine is Peter Vitousek of Our Honolulu, an ecologist "who studies the entire planet by observing what's happening in Hawai'i."

I asked him what makes Hawai'i relevant to people in other places.

"It's an isolated entity with its own plants and animals, people and cultures," he said. "It's simpler than a continent because it's small and isolated so you can understand a lot of the fundamental things that make the world work. I'm trying to understand how plants and animals and soils fit together, how that system works."

He added, "It's not like you can answer every question (by studying islands). It's not exactly the same (on continents). But it is true that the mechanisms, the processes are important everywhere. If you understand them here, you get a good start for everywhere."

An advantage of studying ecology in Hawai'i, he explained, is that "a lot of things are constant (such as rock chemistry) while climate varies over short distances. ... It's the greatest resource on Earth."

Vitousek works out of Stanford University. At the moment, he's on the Big Island teaching a class of 15 students from Brazil, Peru, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico and South Africa. The course is financed by the Mellon Foundation and organized by Duke University's Organization for Tropical Studies.

Why pick Hawai'i as a classroom for this international project? "Because it's such an interesting place to understand things," he said. "People have used islands to understand evolution for a very long time but the study of islands to understand whole cultures and ecosystems is modern."

Vitousek is described in Time magazine as "a great visionary" by marine ecologist Jane Lubchenco at Oregon State University.

An archaeologist from Hawai'i, Patrick V. Kirch of the University of California at Berkeley, is also on this cutting edge of science — using islands to understand cultures. One of the things that make Pat Kirch such a great anthropologist is this approach, said Vitousek.

The two of them will begin a project in January at Kahikinui on the back slope of Haleakala on Maui "to study rainfall and soil fertility, and how the Hawaiians practiced intensive agriculture. How that agriculture in turn shaped soil fertility and the surrounding forest."

I asked him if soil fertility had been depleted. "I can't wait to find out," he said.

Vitousek explained that "in the continental tropics, people had trouble maintaining soil fertility. I don't know what Hawaiians did, how they farmed those field systems for hundreds of years, in particular how they kept enough nitrogen in the soil to keep the system going.

"There is a real question. They were great agriculturists. I can't wait to see what turns up."

Reach Bob Krauss at bkrauss@honoluluadvertiser.com