Native Hawaiian plant communities are becoming increasingly impacted by a variety of forces, including herbivory and trampling by alien ungulates, competition with alien plants, and predation of seeds and seedlings by alien rodents and insects.  To this list of traditionally recognized pressures can be added slugs, a group of voracious herbivores with no native representatives.  At least nine species of exotic slugs are now established in the Hawaiian Islands, some at high elevations where most intact native forest remains.  My project investigates the impacts these slugs may have on native plant survival and vigor, particularly seedlings.  I am seeking to determine what role slugs may play in the unexplained decline of many, once abundant, native plant species.

Krushelnycky, P., L. L. Loope and S. M. Joe.  2004.  Limiting the spread of a unicolonial invasive insect and characterization of seasonal patterns of range expansion.  Biological Invasions 6: 47-57

Medeiros, A. C., C. Chimera, L. Loope, S. Joe and P. Krushelnycky.  2000.  Notes on status and ecology of the Endangered Hawaiian annual 'Awiwi, Centaurium sebaeoides (Gentianaceae).  Pacific Science.  54 (4): 417-422.

Prado, Angel.  Illustrated by, S. Joe.  1988.  Behind Bars at Boñato, Poems of a Cuban Dissident.  Amnesty International Publications, Washington, DC.