NSF R212: Microbes as Activators of Abundance for Food Security and Community Resilience

This project addresses urgent challenges facing food security and community resilience in Hawaiʻi, where over 90 percent of food is imported. With increasing exposure to stressors such as changing sea levels, extreme weather, and ocean acidification, traditional food systems and ecological stability are at risk. Reviving and enhancing centuries-old aquaculture systems known as fishponds provides a sustainable pathway to improve local food production and reduce environmental vulnerabilities. These fishponds, once key sources of nutrition and ecosystem balance, are now being revitalized through community leadership and science-based innovations. By integrating place-based knowledge with microbiological tools, this project aims to restore ecosystem function, support regional self-sufficiency, and contribute scalable solutions for environmental adaptation. The broader societal impacts include empowering communities through education and workforce development and positioning Hawaiʻi as a leader in sustainable aquaculture innovation. This project advances scientific understanding of how microbial communities influence and reflect ecosystem health under stressors such as temperature shifts, salinity changes, and sedimentation. It will assess microbial dynamics in aquaculture environments, identifying key indicators of resilience and testing targeted interventions, including endogenous probiotics and bioremediation strategies. Using a combination of field-based environmental sampling, genomic sequencing, and mesocosm experiments, the project will generate actionable data linking microbial composition and function to ecosystem productivity. By co-developing monitoring tools and restoration strategies with community members, this work bridges microbial ecology and place-based management systems to create replicable models for ecosystem restoration. The project lays the foundation for adaptive frameworks that integrate Earth systems science and place-based practices to support long-term food security and community resilience throughout the Pacific region. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.