Kyle Kashner
Undergraduate Student
Email: kkashner@hawaii.edu
Research Area: Conservation, Genetics, Biodiversity
Research Interests
I have lived on Hawaiʻi Island for my entire life. Though I have also visited many other places, growing up alongside both native and non-native species has allowed me to appreciate biodiversity regardless of where some species may have originated. I am obligated to acknowledge that our endemic treasures often struggle to coexist with many foreign organisms, however the existence of novel native-introduced ecosystems throughout the state encourages me to see conservation for having the ability to promote greater biodiversity.
My research is what refines our genetic database-- a tool that can be used to reliably identify physical specimens, environmental DNA, and organism gut contents. Knowing what animals actually occur in an area is an essential step toward fostering animal health on an ecosystem-wide level. Assessing the quality of environmental DNA and organism gut contents allows conservation to expand on knowledge regarding species ecology, which is a field understood to be the supporting framework of environmental health.
Current Projects
I am currently identifying terrestrial arthropod specimens that have been provided to the lab. My responsibility is to determine whether we possess genetic material of species that fall within a "not found" list, which indicates species which lack DNA barcoding information in the ʻElala database. For specimens that do match this list, I intend to extract the animal's DNA and add the missing sequence reading to our database.
We are looking for both native and non-native species. Arthropods that are missing barcoding information are generally rare, cryptic, or have only arrived to Hawaiʻi recently. By performing this research, I actively broaden an understanding of what species occur locally. Down the line, expanding the ʻElala database will allow conservation workers to easily reference and identify their own specimen DNA and effectively monitor the population range of native, non-native, or invasive species. Accurate range information should then invoke an appropriate conservation response, depending on which arthropods inhabit a given area.
Past Research
My experience extends past terrestrial arthropods. I have previously assisted the West Hawaii Explorations Academy (WHEA) high school in identifying specimens of deepwater marine organisms that students regularly obtain from the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority (NELHA). For roughly three years, I have cooperated with marine biologists on iNaturalist to determine the identity of WHEA's cnidarians, fish, and crustaceans. One specimen of whalefish (Rondeletia loricata) had been deemed significant enough to send to the Smithsonian. However, COVID-19 had unfortunately delayed that contribution.
