Researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara are showing how abandoned coconut plantations have taken over Pacific islands, choking out many native plants, according to Earth.com.

Coconut palms are king throughout the tropics, serving as the foundation for human lives and cultures across the Pacific Ocean for centuries. However, 200 years of planting by colonial interests ...

LAHAINA, Hawaii—For years, local fire officials worried about the blanket of invasive grasslands overtaking the abandoned sugar plantations above Hawaii’s ancestral capital. The highly flammable ...

Seabirds like these red-footed boobies do not nest in coconut palms, so the reduction of broadleaf forests would deprive the atoll of the nutrients from their droppings. (Santa Barbara, Calif.) — ...