Robert Robichaux

Research and Conservation Interests:

My scientific work seeks to reverse extinction’s tide in Hawaiʻi through ecologically and genetically informed on-the-ground conservation action. For the past thirty years, I have collaborated with colleagues in Hawaiʻi to implement large-scale reintroduction efforts for endangered species in the endemic silversword (Asteraceae) and lobeliad (Campanulaceae) lineages. The silversword and lobeliad lineages are the world’s premier examples of plant adaptive radiation on oceanic islands. Though the two lineages are marvels of evolutionary diversification, they and the Hawaiian flora more broadly are confronted by a suite of threats, especially from alien species. The myriad threats have caused precipitous declines in the distributions and abundances of many species in the two lineages, with the most critically imperiled species now having fewer than fifty remnant plants left in the wild. To facilitate species recovery, we have coupled our reintroduction efforts to landscape restoration efforts, particularly within an expansive area of Federal, State, and private lands on Mauna Loa and Kīlauea volcanoes on the Island of Hawaiʻi. The ultimate objective of our integrated and sustained approach is to restore the possibility of adaptive radiation of the silversword and lobeliad lineages going forward, especially on the youngest and most geologically active, and thus perhaps most evolutionarily dynamic, part of the Hawaiian archipelago.

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