07-02-2016, 07:36 AM
We don't know if they are resistant because we don't fully understand how the disease is spread. It could be that some trees were spared whatever vector is spreading the fungus. The top candidate appears to be wood boring beetles. For all we know the mortality rate from the fungus is 100% and the ohias that survived got passed by the beetles, or whatever the vector is, for whatever reason.
"To start trying to out think "Mother Nature" before you even know what is going on is how we have acquired mongooses, albezias, rats, strawberry guava, miconia, and the list of invasives goes on."
This is an excellent example, since the fungus killing the ohia forests is likely another introduced species.
At least 15 Hawaiian bird species are extinct because they had no resistance to imported avian malaria. There is not a lot of precedent that endemic island species "will prove to be resistant and will subsequently repopulate with resistant offspring".
"To start trying to out think "Mother Nature" before you even know what is going on is how we have acquired mongooses, albezias, rats, strawberry guava, miconia, and the list of invasives goes on."
This is an excellent example, since the fungus killing the ohia forests is likely another introduced species.
At least 15 Hawaiian bird species are extinct because they had no resistance to imported avian malaria. There is not a lot of precedent that endemic island species "will prove to be resistant and will subsequently repopulate with resistant offspring".