A core goal of OKEON is to conduct a biodiversity survey of arthropods across the many environments of Okinawa. Arthropods are known as indicators and drivers of many aspects of ecosystem functioning. Moreover, arthropods are considered the most damaging type of invasive species on native ecosystems. Our project samples arthropods continuously with three SLAM traps at each for our 24 sites. In addition, a team of students are making standardized collections using Time Unit Sampling. These collections are processed in the lab at OIST, sorted to order, and targeted taxonomic groups can then be identified and curated.

All specimens are stored and preserved as part of a public biodiversity collection, which is currently located at OIST.

If you have interest in working with any of this material, please contact us.

Anyone who has made a stroll through the woods will know that the soundscape doffers significantly from a city street. Recently scientists have begun to quantify these soundscapes and investigate how they they change depending on the surrounding environment over time, and through days and seasons; a field known as Soundscape Ecology. Soundscapes are measured with very sensitive microphones (0hz-24khz, humans hear 20hz-14khz) and recorders deployed in the field. These devices record both biotic and abiotic sounds, and can be used for monitoring community diversity, soundscape ecology, as well as the presence and activity of given species.

We currently have 5 acoustic recorders deployed at various OKEON sites, and are planning on adding more soon. This effort is led by OIST postdoc Nick Friedman.

New advances in genomic sequencing provide incredible opportunities for understanding ecological and evolutionary processes in the field. Led by the Mikheyev unit at OIST, we are developing new high-throughput technologies for generating rapid sequence data. We have implemented a high-throughput ecological genomics pipeline that generates RAD-seq data and is robust against sample degradation. We are using this pipeline to analyze samples collected from fields ites in Okinawa and elsewhere.

Camera traps capture video and photographs of small animals. This allows us to monitor rodent activity, as well as the spread and activity of the introduced mongoose, one of the most destructive invasive species in Okinawa. We have camera traps deployed to all 24 of our sites continuously recording local activity.

Many biotic and abiotic processes in the environment depend on physical conditions such as incident solar radiation, wind speed/direction, and air/soil temperatures/moisture. We have an environmental data logger at each of the 24 OKEON sites recording at 15-minute intervals of the following parameters: air temperature, soil temperature, soil moisture, solar radiation, relative humidity, wind direction, wind gust, dew point.

In parallel to the field and molecular efforts, we are consolidating geographic datasets covering the environmental landscape of Okinawa. The effort, led by Payal Shah (OIST) and Kenneth Dudley (OIST), has assembled over 27 data layers covering different landscape features in Okinawa. Notably, we have been reconstructing land-use and land-cover change over the last 32 years in Okinawa. We are also building models to evaluate problem areas for sediment and pollution runoff, which is a major challenge to coral reef conservation.