Format: ORAL

Ben Nyberg1

1 National Tropical Botanical Garden, Hawaii, USA

Cliff ecosystems often host unique, narrowly endemic plants. Due to the terrain, it is difficult and dangerous to access these areas. Rapidly evolving drone technology has been helpful in developing a deeper understanding of these cliff taxa through efficient aerial survey. Here we present a high-resolution approach to exploration and documentation of plants growing on vertical surfaces. In addition, new drone-based remote collection hardware has been developed for collecting plants from these hard-to-reach areas. This combination of tools has had an amazing impact for the conservation of critically endangered Hawaiian cliff endemic taxa.