Elephant’s Ear

Elephant’s Ear (Avrainvillea erecta)

Description:

  • Has one green fan shaped blade (Hall & Wade, 2018)
  • Observed as single individuals or in patches (Foster, 2019)

Habitat:

  • Only found in sandy habitats (Hall & Wade, 2018)
  • Commonly occur in seagrass meadows (Foster 2019)

Impacts & Concern:

  • Ecological impacts have not been studied but suspected to overgrow shallow reefs and outcompete seagrass meadows (Hall & Wade, 2018)

Introduction:

  • First discovered in Honolulu Harbor in 2014 (Wade et al., 2018)
  • May have been introduced through regular boat traffic, or from debris following the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami (Hall & Wade, 2018)

Distribution in Hawaii:

  • Kauai: Not documented
  • Oʻahu: Honolulu Harbor, Keʻehi Harbor (Wade et al., 2018)
  • Molokai: Not documented
  • Lanai: Not documented
  • Maui: Not documented
  • Big Island: Not documented

Related AIS Team Management Projects:

  • Avrainvillea erecta monitoring with UH Mānoa

References:

  • Hall, J., & Wade, R. (2018). New mudweed species threatens Hawaii marine environments. University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. https://manoa.hawaii.edu/news/article.php?aId=9646
  • Wade, R., Spalding, H., Peyton, K., Foster, K., Sauvage, T., Ross, M., & Sherwood, A. (2018) A new record of Avrainvillea cf. erecta (berkeley) A. GEPP & E. S. Gepp (Bryopsidales, Chlorophyta) from urbanized estuaries in the Hawaiian Islands. Biodivers Data J., 6, e21617. DOI: 10.3897/BDJ.6.e21617
  • Foster, K. (2019). Avrainvillea erecta: A new invasive species threat to Hawaiian coral reef communities. [Powerpoint slides] US Army Corps of Engineers. https://corpslakes.erdc.dren.mil/employees/learning/webinars/19Aug28-Avrainvillea_erecta.pdf