The population of the endemic wēkiu bug, which can only be found on cinder cones on the summit of Maunakea, has increased more than seven-fold in the last two years.
The news comes just six years after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service removed the bug from the candidate endangered species list.
Every year, Jessica Kirkpatrick braves the high altitude and freezing temperatures of Maunakea to count each wēkiu bug by hand.
Each bug, no bigger than a grain of rice, is collected from live traps set at more than 100 sites across the mountain.
"When we do these wēkiu bug surveys, we’re monitoring for wēkiu bugs to understand their population. We’re also trying to get a sense of different invasive species’ threats that could potentially threaten the bug, things like ants are actually a number one threat on the mountain," she said.
Kirkpatrick, a natural resource specialist with the Center for Maunakea Stewardship, says the bug’s population grew from 400 to 3,000 in the last two years.
She says above-average snow and rain on Maunakea in 2020 and early 2021 could have contributed to the increase.
Greg Chun, executive director of the center, says the goal of the annual arthropod survey is to learn as much as possible about the native species and ensure its ongoing survivability.
"The immediate management challenge to that is mitigating human impacts to the resources because that’s where the biggest threat comes from," he said.
Kirkpatrick says she hasn’t found any direct correlation between human activity and the spike in the wēkiu bug population. But she says any crushing of cinder on Maunakea – whether by car or by foot — may harm the only wēkiu bug habitat in the world.
