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Nov 25, 20226 min read

The Marine Hall Of Fame: Isabella Aiona Abott

Tay'sdo article is part of a special called “The Marine Hall Of Fame”. In this article we will explain a famous female marine biologists life, career, honorables, achievements, & accomplishments. Today's marine biologists name, is Isabella Aiona Abbott. Abott is a Hawaiian marine biologist who did many of her works with various Hawaiian institutions. She is the first native Hawaiian woman to be the recipient of a P.h.D in a scientific area. Abott is one of the few experts on pacific marine algae. She was also an ethnobotanist. She lived from June 20th of 1919 to October 28th of 2010. This segment publishes on the 25th of every month. With that being said, Let us delve into the life of Isabella Aiona Abott. Her Early Life & Her Personal Life She was born Isabella Kauakea Yau Yung Aiona on the 20th of June 1919. She was born in the Hawaiian city of Hana on the isle of Maui. Her Hawaii name means “the white rain of Hana”. Her father was Chinese while her mother was a native Hawaiian. When she was young, her mother taught her about edible seaweeds. This may have been what sparked an interest in marine biology. She was also taught the importance of marine diversity. She was the only girl in her family of 8 siblings. She grew up in Honolulu near Waikiki. She graduated from the boarding school known as Kamehameha schools. She went on to receive her undergraduate degree from the University of Hawaii at Mānoa in 1941. She received her masters degree in botany from the University of Michigan in 1942. After that, she received her P.h.D in in botany from University Of California, Berkeley in 1950. She met her husband, zoologist Donald Putnam Abott from UC Berkeley. However he was also a student at University of Hawaii, Mānoa. They decided to move to the small town of Pacific Grove, California. At this point her husband began teaching at Hopkins Marine Station, which was run & operated by Stanford University. Unfortunately, she had issues finding a position in marine biology as at the time people were rarely even considered for those types of Jobs. However, She did individually study many types of algae along Californias coast. During this time she developed recipes that involved Nereocystis Luetkeana (Bull Kelp). Her Career In the year of 1966 she became a research associate & lecturer at Hopkins Marine Station. During this time she also complied research which she later turned into a book on marine algae of the California coast. She was awarded the Darbaker Prize by the Botanical Society of America in 1969 for this. It is not known if this affected Stanfords decision. However soon after in 1972 Stanford promoted her to a full professor of marine biology. She was the first woman & person of colour to fill this position in the history of Hopkins Marine Station. In 1982 both Donald & Isabella retired and moved back to Hawaii. This is where she was hired by the University of Hawaii to study ethnobotany. She studied mainly Hawaiian seaweeds. It is at this point that she became a leading expert in Hawaiian seaweeds, especially the subgroup of them known as Limu. This is how she got the nickname “First Lady Of Limu”. She is credited with discovering over 200 algae / seaweed species. Several of which are named after her. For example a genus of red algae is named after her, it is known as Abbottella. In 1993 she received the Charles Reed Bishop medal. In 1997 she received the Gilbert Morgan Smith medal from the National Academy Of Sciences. She was a professor of botany until he retirement in 1982. She & her husband then moved back to Hawaii. However she continued her research & became a professor again at a Hawaiian university. She also served on the board of directors at the Bernice P. Bishop Museum. In November of 1997 she co-authored an essay in the Honolulu Star Bulletin which was criticizing the trustees of Kamehameha Schools. This led to its a full reorganization of the group. In the year of 1998 she was elected a fellow of American Association For The Advancement Of Science. In 2005 she was named the living Treasure of Hawai’i. In 2008 she received a lifetime achievement award from the Hawaii Department Of Natural Resources for her studies in relation to the coral reefs of the pacific. On the 20th of June 2016, the University of Mānoa announced a coral reef cleanup of invasive algae species near Waikiki in her honour. On may 26th of 2022 it was announced that a new lecture hall at Hopkins Marine Station will be named after her to commemorate her legacy. A grand opening for the lecture hall happened on the 27th of May. The lecture hall holds nearly 100 seats. Her Botanical Works

  • Isabella A. Abbott (1947). Brackish-Water Algae from the Hawaiian Islands. Pacific Science.

  • Isabella A. Abbott (1961). On Schimmelmannia from California and Japan.

  • Gilbert Morgan Smith; George J. Hollenberg; Isabella A. Abbott (1969)

  • Marine Algae of Monterey Peninsula, California. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-804740197.

  • Isabella A. Abbott (1970). Yamadaella, a new genus in the Nemaliales (Rhodophyta). Phycologia

  • Isabella A. Abbott; Munenao Kurogi (1972). Contributions to the systematics of Benthic Marine Algae of the North Pacific: Proceedings of a seminar on the contributions of culture, laboratory, field and life history studies to the systematics of benthic marine algae of the Pacific ; Japan–U.S. cooperative science program, August 13–16, 1971. Sapporo, Japan: Japanese Society of Psychology.

  • Isabella Aiona Abbott; Eleanor Horswill Williamson (1974). Limu: an ethnobotanical study of some edible Hawaiian seaweeds. Pacific Tropical Botanical Garden.

  • Isabella A. Abbott; George J. Hollenberg (1976). Marine Algae Of California. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-2152-3.

  • Elmer Yale Dawson; Isabella Aiona Abbott (1978). How to know the seaweeds. W. C. Brown Company. ISBN 978-0-697-04892-9.

  • Isabella A. Abbott; Michael S. Foster; Louise F. Eklund. "Pacific seaweed aquaculture". Proceedings of a symposium on useful algae, March 6–8, 1980; Pacific Grove, California. California Sea Grant College Program, Institute of Marine Resources, University of California.

  • Isabella Aiona Abbott (1990). A taxonomic and nomenclatural assessment of the species of Liagora (Rhodophyta, Nemaliales) in the herbarium of Lamouroux.

  • Isabella Aiona Abbott (March 1992). Lā’au Hawai’i: traditional Hawaiian use of plants. Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum Press. ISBN 978-0-930897-62-8.

  • Isabella A. Abbott (1995). Taxonomy of Economic Seaweeds With reference to some Pacific species. California Sea Grant College Program. Eight volume series from an international workshop hosted by the University of Hawaii, Honolulu, July 1993

  • Isabella A. Abbott (April 1996). New Species and Notes on Marine Algae from Hawai'i. Pacific Science. University of Hawai'i Press.

  • Isabella A. Abbott (July 1996). Ethnobotany of seaweeds: clues to uses of seaweeds.Hydrobiologia. Kluwer Academic Publishers.

  • Alan J.K. Millar; Isabella A. Abbott (1997). The new genus and species Ossiella pacifica (Griffithsieae, Rhodophyta) from Hawaii and Norfolk Island, Pacific Ocean. Journal of Phycology.

  • G.T. Kraft; Isabella A. Abbott (1997). Platoma ardreanum (Schizymeniaeae, Gigartinales) and Halymenia chiangiana (Halymeniaceae, Halymeniales), two new species of proliferous, foliose red algae from the Hawaiian Islands. Cryptogamie, Algologie.

  • Isabella Aiona Abbott (1998). Some new species and new combinations of marine red algae from the central Pacific. Phycological Research.

  • Isabella Aiona Abbott (1999). Marine red algae of the Hawaiian Islands. Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum Press. ISBN 978-1-58178-003-1.

  • Isabella Aiona Abbott; John Marinus Huisman (April 2004). Marine green & brown algae of the Hawaiian islands. Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum Press. ISBN 978-1-58178-030-7.

  • Isabella A. Abbott; John Marinus Huisman (June 2005). Studies in the Liagoraceae (Nemaliales, Rhodophyta) I. The genus Trichogloea. Phycological Research.

  • M.S. Kim; I.A. Abbott (March 2006). Taxonomic notes on Hawaiian Polysiphonia, with transfer to Neosiphonia (Rhodomelaceae, Rhodophyta). Phycological Research.

  • Isabella A. Abbott; David L. Ballantine (April 2006). Ganonema vermiculare sp nov (Liagoraceae, Rhodophyta), a new species from Puerto Rico, Caribbean Sea. Botanica Marina.

  • C.F. Gurgel; R. Terada; I.A. Abbott; et al. (April 2006). Towards a global phylogeography of Gracilaria salicornia (gracilariaceae, rhodophyta), an invasive species in Hawaii, based on chloroplast and mitochondrial markers. Journal of Phycology.

  • Isabella Aiona Abbott; Roger R. B. Leakey (June 2006). Craig R. Elevitch (ed.). Traditional trees of the of the pacific islands: their culture, their environment, their use. Permanent Agriculture Resources. ISBN 978-0-9702544-5-0.

  • Isabella Aiona Abbott; John Marinus Huisman; Celia M. Smith (2007). Hawaiian reef plants. Honolulu, Hawaii: University of Hawai'i Sea Grant College Program.

  • Roy T. Tsuda; Isabella A. Abbott; Peter S. Vroom; et al. (April 2008). Additional marine benthic algae from Howland and Baker Islands, central Pacific. Pacific Science.

  • Roy T. Tsuda; Isabella A. Abbott; Peter S. Vroom; et al. (October 2010). Marine Benthic Algae of Johnston Atoll: New Species Records, Spatial Distribution, and Taxonomic Affinities with Neighboring Islands. Pacific Science.

  • Isabella A. Abbott; David L. Ballantine; Daniel C. O'Doherty (July 2010). Morphological relationships within the genus Lophocladia (Rhodomelaceae, Rhodophyta) including a description of L. kuesteri sp nov from Hawai'i. Phycologia

  • Isabella A. Abbott; David L. Ballantine (July 2012). Veleroa setteana, n. sp (Rhodophyta: Rhodomelaceae), from the Hawaiian Archipelago, including Notes on the Generitype. Pacific Science.


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