On this final day of collecting on Maui, one of our two teams stayed along the Hana Highway, collecting the waterfalls, seeps and streams that are part of the lush and beautiful landscape.  Wet walls are a focal point for our research, since they might represent a less impacted habitat, a refuge, for native algal species.

 

{View along the Hana Highway}
 

{Melissa and Jessica near a wetwall along the Hana Highway}
 
 
The second group bid adieu to the twists and turns of the Hana Highway, and went off to the Southwest.  Along the Highway, we took a short detour through Haiku, Maui.
 

 
Inspired, we penned a couple of poems as we thought about the algae:
 
Algae are our friends
Blue-green, brown, green together
They share many stories
 
Scum is not a crime
To the eye, in many ways
They provide for us
 
Glass houses with holes
Moving, floating in water
Challenging but fun
 
 
Compared to Hana, the Southwest is very busy.  Busy, and this time much drier.  Our drive today was so much different than the Hana Highway: close to the coast, with wide expanses of agricultural lands visible.  We saw large fields of coffee, bananas and pineapples from Hana to Laihaina.  Water is so much more scarce in natural streams (though flowing through viaducts for crops).
 
[view out the front window of the coast] 
 

[coffee plantation]
One of the early patterns in our research data suggests freshwater algae from Hawaii may have their closest allies in South America.  This is surprising, since Hawaiian many plants and insects, for example, have their closest relatives in Asia.  We are anxious to se if this pattern seen in the diatoms from Kauai and Oahu holds for our Maui and Big Island collections.
 
Tomorrow we head off to Hilo, on the Big Island.  Lots of places to go and collect: lava tubes, volcanoes, many streams, waterfalls and seeps.  From the hot and dry to the very moist.  We will bid farewell to Carrie, who is heading back to Boulder, to get ready for classes.  And we’ll welcome Rex, a dear friend and co-PI on the grant.  Rex is a professor emeritus at Bowling Green State University.  We will also welcome, Ken, who will be starting grad school at UH and  providing help to the whole group on this expedition, especially the UH team.
 
Maholo!