Kaho Tisthammer
Assistant Researcher, PBRC
Contact Info
kahot@hawaii.edu
Kewalo Marine Laboratory
41 Ahui St. Honolulu, HI 96813
Research Interests
My research focuses on how organisms—particularly marine invertebrates—respond to environmental stress and adapt to changing conditions. I am especially interested in understanding why some individuals, populations, or species exhibit greater resilience than others when faced with diverse stressors. To explore these questions, I combine molecular “omics” approaches with experimental studies and field surveys. Much of my work centers on coral reef ecosystems. Driven by a passion for marine and coral reef conservation, my ultimate goal is to advance the protection of marine biodiversity by generating robust, data-driven scientific insights.
Department and Laboratory Webpages
Selected Publications
Tisthammer KH, McGirr JA, Oziolor EM, Buffalo V, Roach J, Whitehead A. 2025. Evidence of positive polygenic selection following a series of environmental and demographic disasters in Pacific herring (PNAS in review), available at: https://www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2025.08.05.668748v1
Tisthammer KH, Martinez, JA, Downs, CA, Richmond, RH. 2024 Differential molecular biomarker expression in corals over a gradient of water quality stressors in Maunalua Bay, Hawaii. Frontiers in Physiology 15:1346045. doi: https://10.3389/fphys.2024.1346045
Tisthammer KH, Solis C†, Orcales F†, Nzerem M†, Winstead R†, Dong W, Joy JB, Pennings PS. 2022. Assessing in vivo mutation frequencies and creating a high-resolution genome-wide map of fitness costs of Hepatitis C virus. PLOS Genetics.18(5): e1010179 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1010179
Tisthammer KH, Timmins-Schiffman, E, Seneca FO, Nunn BL, Richmond RH. 2021. Physiological and molecular responses of lobe coral indicate nearshore adaptations to anthropogenic stressors. Scientific Reports 11:3423 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-82569-7
Tisthammer KH, Forsman ZH, Toonen RJ, Richmond RH. 2020. Genetic structure is stronger across human- impacted habitats than among islands in the coral Porites lobata. PeerJ 8:e8550 http://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.8550
Additional Information