The impact of malaria on birds in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park

Abstract

The Hawaiian Islands are the most isolated land mass in the world, lying in the middle of the Pacific Ocean over 4,500 km from North America and 5,000 km from Asia. Because of their sterile volcanic origin and great distances from the continents, colonization was infrequent, but when it did occur, the organisms, isolated from mainland influences and constraints, underwent rapid and extensive adaptive radiation. Among the spectacular examples are the land birds, in which 10 of the 11 families have endemic species. Unfortunately, more of these endemic species have become extinct than in any other comparable region of the world. There have been many proposed hypotheses as to why so many native bird species succumbed in the short time period following discovery of the Islands by Captain Cook in 1778; these include habitat destruction by mainland introduced ungulates, indiscriminate collecting of birds, competition with introduced birds, introduced predators, and introduced diseases. In this paper we will attempt to ascertain the role that the introduced malaria parasite has played in the decline of Hawaiian avifauna.