This book is one of a series of volumes reporting results of research by U.S. scientists participating in the International Biological Program (IBP). As one of fifty-eight nations taking part in the IPB during the period July 1967 to June 1974, the United States organized a number of large, multidisciplinary studies pertinent to the central IBP theme of "the biological basis of productivity and human welfare."This volume is a synthesis of the methods and results of a team of thirty-five investigators to study the biological organization in the selected natural ecosystems of the Hawaiian Islands. The research was done between 1971 and 1976 as part of the U.S. contribution to the International Biological Program (IPB).