A Dog That Sniffs Out Fungus to Save ʻŌhiʻa Lehua

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A Belgian Malinois, named Cobra has been helping detect fungal diseases causing Rapid ʻŌhiʻa Death in Hilo, Hawaiʻi.




Cobra has shown to be a fast learner to pick up the scent of the fungus. Kealoha Kinney, a scientist from the Institute of Pacific Island Forestry was the one responsible this creative project idea.

There are two fungal diseases that have influenced the collapse of hundreds of thousands of acres of native ʻōhiʻa on the Big Island: Ceratocyst lukuokia and Ceratocystis huliohia.

This project was funded by Hawaiʻi Department of Agriculture and led by US Forest Service, Redland Ahead Florida-based non-profit Redland Ahead, and Florida International University.

Cobra has been learning to detect the scent of the fungus in trials. As a part of the training process infected samples collected from the forest packed in sealed containers that allow the volatile organic compounds to be exposed and not the biological material to escape, so Cobra can pick up on the scent.


Dog trainer Loudes Edlinis and Cobra


As a demonstration, a sample was stashed in one of the ʻōhiʻa trees on the facility. Cobra quickly sniffed out the the hidden sample and then sat patiently, awaiting her reward.

These preliminary trails have shown great potential to a future solution of using dogs to identify trees infected by ROD. Before, there was no way to detect if a tree was infected by ROD unless visible signs showed symptoms of a dying tree. It also takes a lot of manpower to capture images of the populations and to sample and bring it back to the lab to test, in order to determine the cause of death.

Dogs just detecting the scent of ROD instead of many sampling trips would save a lot of time and leave potential leeway to help in preventing further spread into other parts of the forest and other islands.





Comments

  1. AnonymousApril 15, 2019 at 1:10 PM

    Hi Payden! I never thought of dogs being used to detect a fungus but that is such a good idea. I love dogs and I enjoy hearing positive news about them. I think that this could really help the Ohia Lehua and it is such a beautiful plant. Great topic!
    -Leah K

    ReplyDelete

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