Where’s The Bear? from UC Santa Barbara on Vimeo. by Shelly Leachman, UC Santa Barbara Facing a daunting, digital pile millions of photographs high, how would you find the few images you need? Could you, even? It’s a classic needle-in-a-haystack conundrum, and it’s a blaring reality for ecologists, resource managers and farmers who use camera […]
News
Pencils spread word about invasive pathogen
Pencils milled from a tanoak tree infected by sudden oak death were featured at the opening of a School of the Art Institute of Chicago and University of Chicago art exhibit in Cleveland, Ohio, on December 1, 2017. Attendees learned about the origin of the pencils, sudden oak death, and issues surrounding global trade, the spread of […]
Playing climate change leap-frog with trees…in very slow motion
by Brian Smithers, University of California, Davis, and Constance Millar, USDA Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station One of the predictions of current climate change is that species will generally shift their ranges up in elevation in response to warming. However, some species are likely to be better at that shift than others. Among the species […]
The Golden Forest
by Julie Cohen, UC Santa Barbara Situated between the Santa Ynez Mountains and the coastal plain to the north and the unique Northern Channel Islands archipelago to the south, the coastal zone of Southern California near Santa Barbara is especially alluring. A new children’s book, The Golden Forest (Muddy Boots, 2017), delves into […]
Role of honey bees in ecosystem pollination
by Mario Aguilera, UC San Diego An unprecedented study integrating data from around the globe has shown that honey bees are the world’s most important single species of pollinator in natural ecosystems and a key contributor to natural ecosystem functions. The first quantitative analysis of its kind, led by biologists at the University of California […]
Science to safeguard species
UC Natural Reserve System lands are home to dozens of vulnerable animal and plant species. These range from some of the state’s rarest amphibians to endemic plants to icons of the West such as bighorn sheep. Studies conducted at the 39 reserves of the NRS informs how these species are managed, which helps preserve the […]
From buzz pollination to seal bones: the 2017-18 Mathias Grant awards
Does the personality of a ground squirrel affect its foraging style? Which microbes live in harvester ant guts? What drives the production of Daphnia “superfleas” ? University of California graduate students aim to answer these natural mysteries and more with funding from the UC Natural Reserve System’s 2017-18 Mildred E. Mathias Graduate Student Research Grant […]
Tracking water through California ecosystems
OAKLAND, California—The University of California Natural Reserve System has received a $2.179 million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to monitor the pulse of water through state ecosystems. The California Heartbeat Initiative-Freshwater (CHI-Freshwater) will link plant responses to environmental conditions such as heat waves, rainstorms, and drought on a landscape scale. The results […]