[00:04] James Verdier (Host): I'm James Verdier, and welcome to the American Institute of Biological Sciences' Bioscience Talks, which is a forum for integrating the life sciences. For this episode, we're joined by Heather Kerkering, the Assistant Regional Administrator for the U.S. Geological Survey's Pacific Islands Climate Adaptation Science Center, based in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, and Elliott Parsons, a specialist with Pacific RISCC — the Pacific Regional Invasive Species and Climate Change Management Network — through the Pacific Islands Climate Adaptation Science Center at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. They're here to talk about the work their organizations conduct, particularly with a view to invasive species in the Pacific Island context, and also how that relates to serious storms and other major weather-related events. I hope you'll enjoy our discussion, in which I learned quite a lot. And if you're looking to learn even more, I strongly urge you to check out the show notes for this episode, in particular, where we'll have a number of links to some really great readings. But for now, let's go to the interview.
Thank you both very much for joining me today.
Kerkering / Parsons: Great to be here — thanks for having us.

[01:01] Host: So I thought we'd get started with a little introduction to your organizations and the kind of work they do. I'll let you take it away in whatever order seems best.

[01:12] Heather Kerkering: I can kick it off. I'm Heather Kerkering. I'm with the Pacific Islands Climate Adaptation Science Center — which is kind of a mouthful. We're one of nine regions that are part of the Climate Adaptation Science Centers, or CASCs, across the continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaiʻi, the U.S.-affiliated Pacific Islands, and the U.S. Caribbean. We sit in the Ecosystems Mission Area of the U.S. Geological Survey, which is all under the Department of the Interior. The CASC program has been around since 2010, and the Pacific Islands center since 2012.
Our mission is to deliver science that protects the nation's natural resources and helps ecosystems — which includes humans — adapt to changing conditions. We use a variety of pathways to do that, but our overall goal is to build and support climate adaptation projects and science that are co-produced between researchers, community members, resource managers, and a whole host of agencies that come together with a common goal of finding solutions and building resilience. A lot of our partners include tribal nations, Indigenous communities, universities, and NGOs. Here in the Pacific, we work really closely with the University of Hawaiʻi systems, the University of Guam, and many of the community colleges throughout the Pacific. We really want to ensure we can support efforts that increase resilience and security to the real-world needs and capacities of those affected by climate changes in our region.

[02:41] Elliott Parsons: And I can share a little about Pacific RISCC. RISCC stands for the Regional Invasive Species and Climate Change Management Network, and we're one of a number of RISCCs across the United States and Canada. We're a community of practice. I'm a full-time employee — I started in May 2022, and my position is supported by PI-CASC. We've also got funding from some additional partners I want to thank, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Hawaiʻi Invasive Species Council, and the U.S. Forest Service and its International Programs.
We're dedicated to helping Hawaiʻi and the U.S. Pacific Islands adapt their invasive species prevention, management, control, and eradication work to a changing climate. We've got a leadership team — including a core team and a science team — that meets regularly and includes both managers and researchers from across the region. And we have a lot of different goals, action items, and initiatives to help with these adaptation efforts.

[03:53] Host: Great, thank you. One of the things we'd talked about discussing today was the interaction between invasive species and major weather events or storms — how those two things come together and what the interplay is like. So I was hoping you'd give us a bit of an introduction to that idea, and then we'll take it from there.

[04:21] Heather Kerkering: I can start with a general idea of how the two intersect, and then hopefully Elliott can hop in with some examples. One topic gaining a lot of attention that applies specifically to the Regional Invasive Species and Climate Change Management Network is the relationship between natural disasters and the introduction and spread of invasive species.
The small islands of the Pacific are very susceptible to invasives, and there are added pathways of introduction due to changing environmental conditions and increased natural disasters. The impacts can have severe consequences on everyday life in the islands — everything from food security to water security to national security. Changing conditions are allowing more invasive species to thrive in areas where they didn't used to. And with natural disasters, we have more pathways for invasive species to spread — through natural occurrences like wind or flooding, but also through recovery and response, such as the transport of vessels and materials and the cleanup of waste.
It's really gained a lot of attention, especially since we've had a lot of typhoons recently, particularly with the super El Niño conditions this year. We've had several typhoons hit Guam and CNMI, and hurricanes here in Hawaiʻi. These significant storms can cause erosion, destroy coral reefs, and pose public health risks. They also enable invasive species to take a foothold, especially after landslides, floods, or fires. It's become clearer that storms can spread invasive species, primarily through disaster response and post-storm cleanup and recovery. So we're working hard to look at the link between the two. I can give more detail on our role after we hear from Elliott about how the two interact and how RISCC is addressing it.

[06:40] Elliott Parsons: Thanks, Heather. I want to add a little more context, and then maybe talk about a product we created to illustrate some of those mechanisms and management options. It's worth underlining the vulnerability of the Pacific Islands to biological invasions and climate change and their interactions — and then we can add storms to that.
A couple of things to mention. We have the highest richness of invasive species in the world here in the Pacific Islands, and the highest density in the United States — I believe the figure is that the density of non-native species is about 260 times that of the continental U.S. We also have fairly high arrival rates; species are still showing up. A recent study showed about 12 new naturalized plants are found in Hawaiʻi every year. So we have a lot of invasive species, they're still arriving, and we're also highly vulnerable. That's been shown by work done by some of the Northeast RISCC folks, who found that up to about 33% of plant species that establish on tropical islands become invasive — compared to only 10% to 20% elsewhere, for example on the continents.
Islands are super important. Another figure I like to share is that islands represent only about 6.7% of the land area yet harbor about 20% of Earth's biodiversity. And in Hawaiʻi, we have a large diversity of rare and threatened and endangered species we're trying to protect, as well as native ecosystems.
Over the last few years, especially with the work of Pacific RISCC, we're learning that storms can exacerbate invasive species impacts in a variety of ways. I recently got to work with folks from the Northeast RISCC and the Southeast RISCC to put together a four-page synthesis on how severe storms and invasive species intersect and what we can do about it. It's freely available on the RISCC websites, and it points out some of the mechanisms Heather mentioned. There are examples of species shifting toward the poles in response to a changing climate — that's one mechanism of movement. We have examples of invasive species rafting on storm debris from one place to another, being spread by wind and by waves. And as Heather mentioned, there's growing concern about how emergency relief efforts are inadvertently contributing to the spread of invasive species; there are a couple of studies on that.
I'll give one example. The brown tree snake has extirpated — I believe it's 10 of the 14 — terrestrial bird species in the U.S. territory of Guam. We're very worried about that snake spreading elsewhere in the Pacific, and as storm severity increases, we're worried about more movement between islands and these snakes potentially being moved around.

[09:59] Host: Great. I had a quick follow-up, because I realized there's something I don't know the reason for. Why are islands so vulnerable to the introduction of invasive species — so much more so than continents? What underlies that phenomenon?

[10:29] Elliott Parsons: A variety of theories and reasons have been given. I don't think it's any one thing — it's a combination. Hawaiʻi is one of the most isolated archipelagos in the world, and so not a lot of species arrived here naturally. One hypothesis for why species can establish is that there are a lot of empty niches that haven't been filled.
Propagule pressure is another common reason. Basically, the more individuals of a species that are transported — intentionally or accidentally — to a place, the more likely you are to get establishment of that invasive species. And we have a fairly significant history of moving invasive species to the Pacific Islands. Folks have probably heard of acclimatization societies, which sought to bring in species to remind settlers of home; that was a big phenomenon. In Hawaiʻi, a number of forces also led to extreme degradation of ecosystems. One example is feral cattle, introduced in the 1800s, which had huge impacts on ecosystems — leading to slope destabilization and erosion. So there was a huge effort to go out and find species from around the world to revegetate a lot of these degraded ecosystems, back in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Many, many species were brought to Hawaiʻi — some planted in the hundreds of thousands to millions — and then ended up becoming invasive later. So propagule pressure is a big thing.
But also the favorable climates. We have, I believe, 10 to 12 of the world's 14 biomes — everything from alpine ecosystems at the tops of the volcanoes, Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea, all the way down to near-desert conditions. That creates an incredible opportunity for so many different kinds of species from different climates to find a foothold somewhere in the Hawaiian Islands. So I think a lot of different things are combining to lead to the patterns of invasion we're seeing.

[13:25] Heather Kerkering: Thanks, Elliott. If it's okay, I'll add to that, because one important thing is understanding just how big the Pacific Islands are — not just the state of Hawaiʻi, but all the U.S.-affiliated Pacific Islands, which include territories and freely associated states. Guam and Hawaiʻi especially serve as hubs of transport for materials. All the islands import almost 90% of their goods and food. So we have a lot of marine vessels coming in and out of our ports, not to mention the airports.
A lot of times in the islands, there isn't the infrastructure and there aren't the facilities to investigate or detect potential invasive species — to catch something the size of an ant in a container ship, or something that flies out when you open a container, or all the different ways things can move. And not only from containers originating in the United States, but from a lot of the countries surrounding the Pacific Ocean that move materials in and out of the islands. So there are many pathways for things to be brought in, and often not the resources or personnel to be proactive and prepared, to detect it right away, and then to develop a rapid response in time. A lot of times these things are just out of control and can't be addressed right away — maybe there isn't the expertise, or a pathway for rapid recovery — and then things start to move across the island before you've been able to stop or prevent it. Then you're working on maintaining it so it doesn't get worse.
We can dig into that, because there are a lot of efforts within USGS, PI-CASC, and with the help of the RISCC program to improve all of those things. One thing I did want to clarify — and Elliott, you can back me up here — is that not all invasive species are high-priority ones to eradicate or get rid of. Not all of them cause huge damage; some can settle in without being aggressive or overtaking the native plants or animals we have here, whereas others are higher-risk and cause more problems. So we're really focused on the ones doing that. Elliott mentioned the brown tree snake; we also have the little fire ant, which is spreading across and causing a lot of damage. And another one that's more recent but spreading quickly is the coconut rhinoceros beetle, or CRB, which destroys a lot of our palms. Those are just three, but there are more that we're focused on.

[16:24] Host: Thank you — that'll be very helpful, in the unlikely event that we have listeners who know as little about invasive species and islands as I do. I had another quick follow-up. You mentioned the relationship between recovery efforts after a storm or disaster and the spread of invasives, and I'm wondering what causes that. Is it a function of rescuing people and provisioning resources being the highest priority in those events, so biosecurity falls by the wayside a bit? I'm just wondering about the dynamics.

[17:01] Heather Kerkering: A lot of my response here is going to focus on what we've experienced recently in Guam and CNMI, especially with their typhoons, because we have some examples — and I know Elliott has some case studies too where recovery efforts after a natural disaster have been problematic in helping spread invasive species.
So yes, you have the movement of goods and materials to help with recovery. Another issue is green waste management. After a storm you generally have a lot of trees and plants down, all tangled up. You could easily have, say, a coconut rhinoceros beetle in palms that have come down, or in soils that have been disrupted, and you're moving all that green waste to a site where it can be picked up and distributed — basically moving those invasives to new sites where they can spread further. And often those green waste sites are near ports, whether a seaport or an airport, so you're moving invasive species into areas where they can be picked up and moved even further by vessels.
So it's both: bringing something in as part of a recovery effort — if you don't have the resources to look for invasives — and, of course, in an emergency the most important things are infrastructure and life. We're part of the National Invasive Species Council (NISC), and we put out a white paper in 2024 addressing exactly this: it's called How to Reduce the Risks of Introducing and Spreading Invasive Species in a Major Disaster. It's both continental and island focused, and Elliott and I have worked hard to bring that guidance to different events, particularly the biosecurity forums held in Guam and CNMI — and an upcoming one in American Samoa looking for invasive species during an event and being able to run early detection and rapid response.
[19:25] Elliott Parsons: I'll add a couple of things. There's a great article published in Biological Invasions that shares one of these case studies, from Dominica. The authors found that green iguana and Cuban tree frog were introduced in emergency relief ships, with the possibility of also introducing the Venezuelan snouted tree frog. One take-home message from that paper is that these incursions right after events suggest biosecurity is not necessarily being implemented by aid-facilitating countries and organizations. So it's something we need to bring a lot more awareness to.
There's another example, too. One of our partners in Saipan talked about a relief ship that showed up after Super Typhoon Sinlaku with a bunch of equipment to be used for recovery — and the equipment was completely covered in mud, probably with seeds of different plants in it. So prevention is the key. We need to work with partners to ensure biosecurity is done before relief efforts are sent — so things are ready to go, clean, washed, or heat-treated, all the best practices for killing pests before they're transported across the ocean.
I also want to mention that after a storm you may have a huge disturbed area that's more susceptible to biological invasion. That's part of the synthesis we did, and it's really important — you may get increased establishment success as a result of all the damage the storm has done: a lot of ground that could be colonized by invasive plants. So it can be a combination of the transport combined with the disturbed ecosystems those invaders find themselves in after a storm goes through.

[21:54] Host: I was hoping we could chat a bit more about the context in which your work takes place. I at least don't have a mental model for the scale of the area your organizations work within. How large an area are we talking about? How many islands? This sounds like an enormous challenge.

[22:22] Elliott Parsons: I can start us off. If we include Hawaiʻi as well as all the U.S.-affiliated Pacific Islands — the three U.S. territories of Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa, and then the freely associated states, Palau, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia — it's over 2,000 islands, over 20 languages spoken, and, if you include the surrounding ocean, a much vaster area than the continental United States. So it's a large, very diverse area.
The islands bring a lot of challenges, such as sharing information between jurisdictions, or even between islands within the same country, territory, or state. So a lot of what we do with Pacific RISCC is trying to create knowledge-exchange opportunities — ways for people to share what they're doing with each other, like our webinar series. We've especially tried to find talks from the U.S.-affiliated Pacific Islands, because so much incredible conservation work is happening there that folks in Hawaiʻi may not be aware of, and vice versa. Knowledge sharing, knowledge exchange, and finding as many opportunities as possible to break down silos — to reduce that effective size to something smaller so we can work together — is one of the big things we do.

[23:53] Heather Kerkering: Thanks, Elliott. I'll also add that the islands have about 14,000 square miles of land, but with the U.S. jurisdiction afforded by the islands, we cover over 5.8 million square miles due to our exclusive economic zones, which are areas that extend 200 nautical miles from the coast. So with all the territories Elliott mentioned — CNMI, Guam, and American Samoa, the U.S. Pacific Remote Islands, the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands beyond the main Hawaiian Islands you usually hear of, and then our freely associated states, it's a huge region we're effectively mandated to work in as part of PI-CASC and that RISCC works to represent. In total it's about 11.4 million square miles that we're working in.
And as Elliott mentioned, there's a lot of commonalities between these places, but also a lot of different languages spoken, different influences, different cultural practices, and different politics at play. So we're sometimes working in really complex environments where there are limited resources. It takes a lot of effort — as anyone who's done work in the Pacific knows, especially related to natural resources — and developing partnerships and collaboration is key to making any program effective. Sometimes those relationships take years to build. It isn't easy to get to everybody in the region; the flights are long. Even from Hawaiʻi, a flight to California is about five or six hours — it's that the same time it takes us to get from Hawaiʻi to Guam on the other side. From there it's two or three hours down to Palau or up to CNMI, and then on separate flights over to American Samoa. So it takes a lot of time to build the relationships, to understand the needs of the region, to understand what resources are needed, where their own governments are really focusing their scientific priorities, and what tools they need to make decisions.
For USGS and the RISCC, we're really working to provide the scientific information that's needed for decision-making about natural resources. There are other agencies too — I mentioned earlier the Office of Insular Affairs, which is also part of the Department of the Interior, which helps support the infrastructure needs that are identified through these networks — and we host trainings and workshops in collaboration with them for this kind of knowledge exchange. It's years in the making, even though the impacts from storms and the spread of invasive species work at a much faster pace than government. So we rely on our partnerships in the region and on the islands, and within not only USGS but also the Fish and Wildlife Service, USDA, FEMA, and a whole bunch of groups that support the islands. It's a lot of people, a lot of moving parts, and a lot of considerations when we're addressing natural disaster emergency response and looking at invasives.
There are groups that form pre-, during, and post-events to coordinate everything, and there are protocols for these islands to initiate rapid response teams — though it sometimes takes federal clearance to do that. It's a work in progress, but over the years we've grown and developed the network of people so well that we're making headway and identifying what steps need to be taken. Almost as importantly, we're highlighting and communicating why this matters — because the impact of invasives is an impact on the economy and on national security. We have a lot of military installations on the islands as well. And how is it impacting food and water — not only water quality but water availability — and the economy in general? A lot of people don't have a day-to-day relationship with the magnitude of what an invasive species impact might do, and in the islands we're much more susceptible, and the impacts are much higher. So every year, every event, and every project we support, we're making headway to protect and build the resiliency of the islands as much as possible.

[29:18] Elliott Parsons: I want to share a few numbers, if I can, to add to Heather's point about damage costs — this was part of one of our recent projects. When we did a deep dive into the InvaCost database, we found that invasive species have cost the U.S. and U.S.-affiliated Pacific Islands about $12 billion in cumulative damage — to agriculture, public health, natural resources, and infrastructure — over the four-decade period between 1980 and around 2020. To put that in context with the rest of the U.S., when you adjust by land area, the cost to the U.S. islands alone is more than five times greater than to the U.S. continent, and almost double the cost per capita. Those numbers show how greatly we're impacted. And I think it's an underestimate, because when I was going through that database, a lot of invasive species that have caused a lot of damage seemed to be missing. Finally, these costs have quadrupled every decade since 1980 — so they're increasing dramatically, and increasing dramatically in the Pacific Islands too. So we're very interested in how we can mitigate and prevent, but also adapt to a changing climate. And storms are one good way to illustrate these growing risks.
I thought I could share the Typhoon Mawar and the Hurricane Iselle examples — two good case studies. The first: Super Typhoon Mawar hit Guam in 2023. I authored an article about this with MJ Mazurek, who's with the Fish and Wildlife Service in the Pacific region. What happened was the airport was damaged in Guam, so an airplane was parked in a location it isn't usually parked in, for storage overnight. It just sat there — and combine that with damaged fencing and with all the snake traps having been taken down before the storm hit (otherwise you'd lose them all), and a brown tree snake made its way into the airport, got into the wheel well of the plane, and hitched a ride to Saipan. It wasn't caught. There are protocols — people who check the planes, and canines trained to sniff out brown tree snakes and other pests — but they missed it. Luckily it didn't get off in Saipan; it went back to Guam, where it was rediscovered when it came in. So it was a near miss, but it illustrated how storms can damage infrastructure and our ability to prevent species from spreading, and how carefully we need to think about all the steps needed to prevent that.
The other example is albizia in Hawaiʻi — a good example of how storms can increase the impacts of species already present. Albizia is a super fast-growing tree, one of the fastest-growing trees in the world; I think it grows up to 15 feet a year. Originally from Java and northern Borneo, it was brought to Hawaiʻi — I believe by Joseph Rock — and introduced in Mānoa Valley. Over time it became an invasive species that spread. When Hurricane Iselle hit in 2014 — as a very strong tropical storm on the windward side of the island — albizia trees, which are structurally very weak, tend to drop branches, get uprooted, and fall down during storms. There were albizia trees down everywhere on the Hilo side of the island. They caused damage to roads, infrastructure, and vehicles — many millions of dollars in damage. And it's not just albizia: ironwood is another non-native species that comes down easily in storms and damages things under it. Silver oak is another example.
With albizia, we have a great story of a lot of funding going into managing it, through the Big Island Invasive Species Committee, afterward. Now when you drive around Hilo, you don't see nearly as many albizia along important roads. And after the recent storms — I'm thinking Hurricane Lala in particular — we didn't see that same level of damage from albizia in Hilo, because a lot of them had been removed from critical areas. So part of what the Big Island Invasive Species Committee does in relation to storms is find the species that are here that could cause damage and find ways of mitigating it. That's one of the opportunities for being proactive.

[35:36] Heather Kerkering: If I can jump in — those are great examples, Elliott, of what happens after a storm. I'd also like it if you could share your example of the reverse: how invasive species have helped perpetuate disasters, particularly the movement and establishment of invasive grasses that are more fire-prone than native grasses, which can make an area more susceptible to fires.

[36:13] Elliott Parsons: Sure, thank you. I'm sure a lot of listeners will have heard of the Maui fires. One of the extreme fires — they were multiple fires — was the Lahaina fire, which burned down most of the town of Lahaina in 2023. In Hawaiʻi, one of the most problematic types of invasive species, as Heather mentioned, are invasive grasses. They're very fire-prone: they can dry out quickly, and some can carry fire even when they're green. A lot of them are perpetuated through what's called the grass–fire cycle: a fire comes in, the grass doesn't die because the actively growing part is underneath the soil, but the seeds spread — so over time fire eats away at forests and converts them to exotic grasslands. It's gotten to the point where about 25% of the state of Hawaiʻi's land cover is these non-native invasive grasses.
When they're managed — controlled with cattle grazing or removed for agriculture — they tend not to be a big problem. But when they're unmanaged, they can attain very high biomass and carry fire easily. The storm connection Heather mentioned is Hurricane Dora, which helped create an incredible pressure gradient, leading to the extreme winds that fueled the fire once it started. One of the grasses found around Lahaina before the fire was buffel grass, which just a few years earlier was found by one of the Northeast folks — in a PNAS paper they wrote — to increase fire frequency by about 150%. That's how fire-prone this particular species is.
So these invasive grasses are another high-priority group. We've talked about the little fire ant, CRB, and brown tree snake, but the invasive grasses are a very top priority in terms of managing them — getting rid of them or making sure they're managed, for example through cattle grazing, or hiring companies that bring in domestic goats or sheep to graze the grasses down. That's a huge concern, given they cover about a quarter of the state.

[39:03] Host: That's really fascinating. I'm grateful we've gotten in a couple of examples of things being done to mitigate the damage even when eradication isn't in the cards. I was hoping to get a sense of things our listeners might be on the lookout for coming from your organizations — what activities are underway now that an interested listener might keep an eye out for in the future?

[39:29] Heather Kerkering: I can start. I'll speak specifically about the topic we've been discussing — mostly invasive species. It's U.S. government policy to prevent the introduction, establishment, and spread of invasives and to eradicate and control established populations. We're doing our best within USGS — I've mentioned PI-CASC, and there are the other centers out here, the Pacific Island Ecosystems Research Center and the Western Ecological Research Center, working together. You can look forward to some of our research that will feed information to our partners across the islands on identifying species that may be problematic, and to setting up procedures for federal partnerships for rapid response.
I also wanted to mention that with the CASCs — not just PI-CASC, but all nine regions across the nation — we run an annual funding opportunity. It's a chance for partners we've worked with for years, or new partners with established relationships, to bring forward co-produced ideas: what information do we need to make better decisions and improve our security, whether that's food, water, natural resources, or cultural resources? So we run an annual competition you can apply to. Each region funds anywhere between five and ten projects a year to move its science priorities forward, and those of the Department of the Interior. One position we've been able to fund every year is the RISCC specialist role that Elliott holds.
We're hoping to continue growing over the next few years. We've been in existence for 10 to 15 years, depending on the region, and we want to maintain that and keep growing our networks — providing funds and opportunities for people to build climate adaptation and resilience across the islands, and continuing to support the Regional Invasive Species and Climate Change network for all its effectiveness. It's really helped large efforts within the Department of the Interior and helped our island partners understand their natural environments. We're adaptable — just as it's in our name — as priorities shift, and we work to meet those. That's what you can look forward to from us.

[42:31] Elliott Parsons: And I'll say a few things about Pacific RISCC. We're up to many things, especially if you consider the whole RISCC network — folks can go to the website and check it out at risccnetwork.org. That's a good place to connect to the Pacific RISCC site, or to find your RISCC region and see what's going on where you are in the U.S. or Canada.
Next week is actually the biggest event I've ever worked on as part of Pacific RISCC: we're putting on the first-ever in-person Coconut Rhinoceros Beetle Science and Management Symposium. We're bringing together 25 experts from across the Pacific in CRB research and management to share emerging research and new management tools. It'll be at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Conference Center Ballroom over three days. If you search for "CRB symposium 2026, third annual" — it's the third one we're doing, but the first in person — you'll find the website. There may be a few more spots to sign up, which might be of interest to folks on the continent now that CRB has been detected in Mexico.
We're also continuing our webinar series, which is one of our most successful offerings — we've got 48 webinars now posted and freely available on the website, all on different projects about how climate change and invasive species intersect in the Pacific region. We have an upcoming International Invasive Species and Climate Change Conference in December — we call it the IISCCC — which is two days, virtual, so that's something to tune into as well.
And the last plug: our postdoc, Dr. Harmony Yomai, is working on a project funded through the USGS Climate Adaptation Postdoctoral Program, funded by both the National CASC and the Pacific Islands CASC. Her project is trying to understand range-shifting species in the Pacific and the role of climate and invasion pathways. She's got one more year in the postdoc, and I'm so excited to see the results and get them out to the network through webinars and maybe a couple of fact sheets. If you're interested, you can sign up for our listserv to find out more. You can reach me at eparsons@hawaii.edu and I'll get you signed up if you want to learn more about these future opportunities with Pacific RISCC.

[45:29] Host: It sounds as though you're both incredibly busy, so I'm particularly thankful you took the time to chat with me today. Thank you very much for being here. I'm really looking forward to getting this episode out, and we'll of course share a bunch of links in the show notes for those who'd like to do more reading and listening. So thank you very much — I appreciate it.
Kerkering / Parsons: Thank you — it was a pleasure. Thanks so much, James.

[45:55] Host: And that concludes this episode of Bioscience Talks. Just a reminder: the journal BioScience is published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Institute of Biological Sciences, and is made possible by the support of our members and donors. Thank you, and talk to you next time.