Project 01The Argemone Project
Argemone across Hawaiʻi, Mexico, and the Americas
What can prickly poppies reveal about the evolution of defense across continental and island environments?
Explore the Argemone ProjectPlant functional ecology · Island systems
Research rooted in resilience
The Barton Lab asks how plants defend themselves, survive environmental stress, and shape the biodiversity of Hawaiian ecosystems.
Research overview
How plants persist on islands
Kasey’s research integrates functional traits, experiments, field surveys, and open data to understand how plants respond to herbivores, drought, competition, and the distinctive evolutionary setting of islands.
These four projects move from individual defense traits to population dynamics and whole-forest patterns, with Hawaiʻi serving as both a remarkable natural laboratory and a place where ecological insight matters urgently.
Plant defensePrickles, latex, tolerance, and changing strategies
Environmental stressDrought responses across species and populations
Island biodiversityRecruitment, adaptation, and forest persistence
Four research programs
Explore the work
Each project pairs a focused ecological question with field observations, experiments, and interactive research resources.
Project 01
Project 02Drought Tolerance Index
Native and non-native Hawaiian plants
How do seedlings from different species, populations, and islands survive and grow when water becomes scarce?
Explore the Drought Index
Project 03The ʻŌhiʻa Project
Metrosideros polymorpha
What controls recruitment and population dynamics in the foundation tree that structures Hawaiian forests?
Explore the ʻŌhiʻa Project
Project 04The Pua Kala Project
Argemone glauca
How do prickles, latex, waxes, and tolerance combine into a flexible defense strategy in Hawaiʻi’s endemic poppy?
Explore the Pua Kala Project