There's a new addition to the 15th Annual UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day, which showcases 12 museums or collections on Saturday, Feb. 21.
What is BioDiv Day? It's a free and family friendly event known as "Super Science Day," a day you can view the displays (within varying times from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.), and engage with the scientists.
What's the new addition?
Drum roll...It's the grand opening and celebration of two newly installed large-scale murals located behind the Plant Nursery of the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden on Garrod Drive, across from the School of Veterinary Medicine. The unveiling and speeches will take place at 3 p.m., and you're invited.
The murals are the work of urban landscape entomologist Emily Meineke, associate professor and director of the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program and her students in ENT 001: "Art, Science and the World of Insects"; her mentor and colleague, UC Davis Distinguished Professor Emerita Diane Ullman, emerita director of the Art/Science Fusion Program; and volunteers. Some 84 students helped on each of the murals, or 168 in total.
"The two murals are the first half of a 4-mural project displaying a cross-section of California’s diversity, spanning from the coast to the Sierras," Meineke says. "The murals being unveiled are of the coast and the Central Valley. They are 15’ by 5’ large format, high-relief pieces, each made by one quarter of ENT 001 students."
Meineke's research project, Climate Adaptation Living Lab (CALL), graces the front of the murals, and illustrates how relationships between insects and plants will shift as the climate changes. The plant palette is comprised of low-water, pollinator favorites, including:
- Sneezeweed, Helenium puberulum
- Mugwort, Artemisia douglasiana
- Black sage, Salvia mellifera
- Common snowberry, Symphoricarpos albus var. Laevigatus (UC Davis Arboretum All-Star)
- Rock phacelia, Phacelia californica
Biodiversity Museum Day
A list of the 12 museums or collections, with brief descriptions, appears on the UC Davis Entomology and Nematology website. They include the Anthropology Museum, Arboretum and Public Garden, Bee Haven, Bohart Museum of Entomology, Botanical Conservatory, California Raptor Center, Center for Plant Diversity (Herbarium), Design Museum, Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology, Nematode Collection, Paleontology Collection, and Phaff Yeast Culture Collection.
Cover Image: The first of two murals installed by the Plant Nursery, UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden by UC Davis entomologists Emily Meineke and Diane Ullman, students, and volunteers.