Final Comprehensive Conservation Plan - U.S. Fish and Wildlife ...

Natural Processes
(biotic and abiotic processes
responsible for habitat conditions) Limiting Factors
Collapse of lava tube roof and resulting Limiting factors
vertical walled opening protects include a lack of native
remnants of once common plants, now pollinators and several
rare or endangered, from grazing by pest species (e.g.,
ungulates.
ungulates, rats, mice,
slugs, mosquitoes,
invasive plants, and
diseases).
Population/Habitat Attributes
(age class, structure, serial stage, species
composition)
Habitats (plant
communities that represent
existing BIDEH)
The vertical walls created from the collapse of
lava tube roofs naturally protect native plant
communities. Skylights, unlike the lava tubes
themselves, are exposed to the surface
environment of rainfall, sunlight, and
temperature fluctuations.
Lava tube skylights
[Various above-ground
habitats surround
skylights, depending upon
elevation]
Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge
Comprehensive Conservation Plan
There are a finite
number of lava tubes.
Typically skylights
form shortly after lava
tube formation.
These steep-sided depressions prevent
degradation from ungulates, thus providing
protected habitat for one fern species,
Asplenium peruvianum var. insulare that is
unique to skylight habitats, and also high
populations of other rare and endangered
plant species.
Human disturbance
such as trampling could
destroy any sub-fossil
or archeological
resources.
Appendix F: Biological Integrity, Diversity, and Environmental Health and Resources of Concern F-9
Note: nomenclature for habitat names follows Jacobi et al. (1989).