Scientists debate a new way of understanding flora This excerpt is from a story by Michael Pollan (Omnivore’s Dilemma, Botany of Desire) published Dec. 23, 2013 in The New Yorker Plants speak in a chemical vocabulary we can’t directly perceive or comprehend. The first important discoveries in plant communication were made in the lab in […]
Blog Post
The Friendliest Bird on the Beach
by April Price, Conservation Specialist, Coal Oil Point Reserve On August 6, an employee at McGrath State Beach rescued a plover egg from being washed away, and brought the egg to the NRS’s Coal Oil Point Reserve. After a two-day incubation at the reserve, a fuzzy baby plover emerged and Raul was born. Raul spent […]
Oceans and Mediterranean Climate
Mellow weather is a hallmark of Mediterranean-climate regions. The warm, dry summers and cool, wet winters enjoyed by places like Cape Town and Los Angeles have a surprising origin: the oceans. The oceans exert a moderating influence on many parts of the globe. But in Mediterranean-climate regions, the production of coastal fog, atmospheric cells, and […]
Climate change study at Valentine Reserve/SNARL
by Katie Vane Eastern Sierra volunteers recently wrapped up the first full year of a study on the effects of climate change at the Valentine Reserve and Sierra Nevada Aquatic Research Laboratory (SNARL) in and near Mammoth Lakes. The efforts are part of a larger California Phenology Project, which by observing and recording the life […]
Fieldwork: The Great Outdoors
Now more than ever, field stations are helping scientists to tackle big questions about pressing environmental issues by Roberta Kwok Noah Whiteman’s 2011 field season was tough. He and his team spent two summer months in the Rocky Mountains studying whether bacterial infections made plants more vulnerable to herbivores. They wanted to isolate bacteria from […]
The New Naturalists
UC’s California Naturalist Program is integrating citizen science into conservation By Ann Brody Guy “Birds are mobile indicators of ecosystems,” wildlife biologist Walter Clevinger tells a group of California Naturalist students bundled against the early-morning cold. At 7:15 a.m., the group had just crunched across a frosty meadow at Sagehen Creek Research Station, 10 miles […]
Undergrads Research the Sierra Nevada
UC Merced researchers take advantage of the university’s proximity to the beautiful Sierra Nevada mountain range through research in Yosemite and Sequoia-Kings Canyon national parks. Professors Stephen Hart and Michael Berman and Yosemite Field Station Director Becca Fenwick hosted eight students from around the state and the country as part of the National Science Foundation-sponsored […]
Boyd Deep Canyon Lecture Series 2013-14
The clash between renewable energy and wildlife conservation; the hidden information in hummingbird song; and how collecting and cooking impede turtle conservation: These are just a few of the tantalizing talks in the NRS’s Boyd Deep Canyon Desert Research Center 2013-14 lecture series. The lectures are facilitated by Dr. Allan Muth, director of the NRS’s […]