Our Vision: A climate-vegetation observatory for building capacity to understand, conserve, and manage Hawaiian forest ecosystems in a rapidly changing world
The Hawaiʻi Permanent Plot Network (HIPPNET) was initiated in 2007 by faculty and research ecologists at the University of Hawaiʻi, USDA Forest Service, and UCLA to investigate forest dynamics across the Island of Hawaiʻi.
The long-term goal is to establish large-scale, permanent plots in native-dominated forest across elevation and precipitation gradients throughout the Hawaiian Islands. Long-term forest dynamics plots have been established worldwide; these plots establish Hawaiʻi as part of the The Forest Global Earth Observatory (ForestGEO) network.
Four plots on the Island of Hawaiʻi have been established within the network: the Laupāhoehoe plot represents montane wet forest, the Palamanui plot represents lowland dry forest, the Mamalahoa plot represents ʻōhiʻa dominated dry forest, and the Sanctuary plot at Puʻu Waʻawaʻa represents montane mesic forest.
In keeping with protocols used for creating permanent plots in temperate and tropical forests worldwide, all of the plots are located in areas with good access, strong commitment from landholders and local communities toward conservation, and high native species cover. The permanent plots are established following widely used protocols developed for tropical and temperate forests by ForestGEO. Within each plot, all free-standing native woody plants ≥1 cm in diameter are tagged and mapped. The forest plots are re-censused every 5 years, with some annual surveys when possible.
The data collected through coordinated projects carried out at the HIPPNET sites enables the University of Hawaiʻi and collaborators to be leaders in numerous important areas of ecology and adds substantially to our understanding of forest dynamics.
Laupāhoehoe Phenocam – Click on the link to learn more about the latest picture taken by the phenocam on the HIPPNET weather tower in Laupāhoehoe, updated several times a day. The camera is part of a global PhenoCam network, hosted by Harvard University.