- What does it mean for a species to be native to a place like Hawaii?
- Using DNA analysis, scientists traced that the "entire Hawaiian silversword alliance had descended from a single, ancestral North American tarplant," which likely travelled to Hawaii by bird
- When considering the "native" question:
- When did it arrive?
- Does it have unique adaptations? "An ocean away from the stressors of the mainland, for example, many plants lost their defenses. Nettles lost their stings, evolving into soft understory plants, and raspberries lost their prickles. Some plants also lost their dispersal mechanisms, jettisoning sticky seed parts designed for hitchhiking on animals, or gaining curlicue-shaped seeds that twist into the ground like a stake."
- Similar philosophical context to the question, "When did Hawaiians become Hawaiian?"
- Invasice species arrive and have power to dramatically affect ecosystem on scale of decades
- Polynesian settlers "brought a carefully curated "biocultural kit" of plants, each chosen for its multiple cultural uses and meanings. The kit included plants like taro, a staple food plant and medicine that also conveys stories about Polynesian identity and values, coconut, sugarcane, bamboo, and breadfruit."
- Not considered native, some could even be invasive, but most require intentional human cultivation, and have developed into unique varieties
- Polynesians developed a system for managing and cultivating the islands' flora that maintained a high level of biodiversity
- Can look at ecosystems of California in a similar lens, as an island (bc isolated, Mediterranean climate)