By Kathleen Wong, UC Natural Reserve System A deadly disease has been burning through amphibians around the world. What some call the most devastating pathogen of all time has played a role in over 90 extinctions, and caused over 500 more species to decline. Research associated with the first outbreaks of chytrid disease, caused by […]
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Students dip their toes into coastal science at Younger Lagoon
By Kathleen Wong, UC Natural Reserve System It’s a glorious spring day at Younger Lagoon Reserve, and Laura Chain is suited up and ready to go. Clad in black waders—voluminous rubber pants with boots attached, held up by suspenders—she steps gingerly into the yellow-green water. “It’s a little weird getting in because I don’t know […]
Soil warming experiment to measure future carbon emissions
By Kathleen Wong, UC Natural Reserve System A bucolic meadow in Marin is about to be catapulted into the next century. Climate researchers plan to heat its soils to temperatures the region won’t experience for decades. They want to see whether global warming will release more atmosphere-heating carbon from the vast stores now sequestered in […]
Remembering “isotope queen” Marilyn Fogel, pioneering scientist, beloved mentor
By Jules Bernstein, UC Riverside Marilyn Fogel, endowed geoecology professor at UC Riverside, died on May 11 at her home in Mariposa, Calif. She was 69. She pioneered the use of different forms of the same chemical element, called isotopes, to understand the life history of organisms, both modern and ancient. In so doing, she […]
Art Riggs, diabetes researcher and Granite Mountains supporter, remembered
By Sarah Nightingale, UC Riverside UC Riverside alumnus and friend Arthur D. (Art) Riggs, a pioneering researcher and expert in diabetes who helped launch the biotechnology industry, died March 23, 2022. He was 82. A world-renowned geneticist at City of Hope in Duarte, Calif., for 53 years, Riggs’ discoveries have impacted the lives of diabetes, […]
SHIFT campaign links plant biodiversity and health with NASA’s remote sensing technology
By Kathleen Wong, UC Natural Reserve System NASA is ground-truthing data generated by its next-generation earth imaging technology with a major research campaign hosted at three Central California NRS reserves. The SHIFT (Surface Biology and Geology High Frequency Time Series) project marries high-definition remote sensing efforts with actual samples of land plants, plankton, and kelp […]
NRS establishes research compact with Chilean university reserves
By Kathleen Wong, UC Natural Reserve System The UC Natural Reserve System is expanding its international connections by establishing an agreement with the regional centers and field stations (RCER) of Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (UC Chile). The agreement, the first between the NRS and another system of field stations, paves the way for exchange […]
Beach hoppers feed island foxes
By Sonia Fernandez, UC Santa Barbara Island foxes are masters of survival. Having lived and evolved on the windswept, rugged and relatively remote Channel Islands off the coast of California for thousands of years, the cat-sized canids have quite a few tricks up their sleeves. Their small size, for one, is an adaptation to their […]