- Posted By: John Stumbos
- Written by: Diane Nelson, denelson@ucdavis.edu, (530) 752-1969
A Forest Biology Research Center has been created at UC Davis, bringing good news for students, researchers, and all of us who like to breathe clean air.
“Trees are as important as agriculture to the landscape of California and the world,” says UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences Professor David Neale, a forest geneticist and the driving force behind the new center. “Creation of the center culminates the work of many people over many years to bring a visible presence to forest biology research and education on the UC Davis campus.”
UC Davis is a prime location for forest biology research and education because of its proximity to the Sierra Nevada and...
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
We're in the midst of a housing crisis, so why not build a 30-unit, high-rise condo in your yard?
No, not for people--for native bees.
We just installed a bee condo for leafcutting bees (Megachile spp.), on a five-foot high pole overlooking catmint, lavender and salvia. The "housing development" is actually a wooden board drilled with small holes to accommodate our tiny tenants. Comfy and convenient. Rooms with a view. No housing permits or EIR required. Rent-free, mortgage-free.
Leafcutting bees, aka leafcutter bees, are about the size of a honey bee but darker, with the characteristic light-banded abdomens. They are important pollinators.
Why are they called leafcutter bees? Because the...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Pesticides that have not been sold at the retail level for years are still regularly found in residential runoff water, according to research in Sacramento and Orange counties by UC scientists. So called “legacy pesticides” are probably old products that homeowners still have on their garage shelves and are still using to control pests.
An earlier study by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation and the UC Integrated Pest Management Program found that 60 percent of pesticides sold to consumers are for ant control. For that reason, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in landscape horticulture Loren Oki of UC...
- Author: Rick Sweitzer
The UC Berkeley Sierra Nevada Adaptive Management Project (SNAMP) Fisher Team has just finished closely monitoring reproductive-age female Pacific fishers living in the Sierra National Forest near Bass Lake for the spring 2011 denning season. Each year the denning season for fishers starts around late March and ends in mid June.
The fact that one of the study's radio-collared female fishers moved her kit from a natal den tree (where the kits were born) in the Sierra National Forest to a maternal den tree in the Mariposa Grove area of Yosemite National Park was a highlight. The event was significant for the park service because it represents the first known fisher den tree...
- Author: Ann Brody Guy
As it turns out, the farmer and the cowman should be friends, as the classic “Oklahoma!” song suggests. According to a just-published UC Berkeley study, wild bee species pollinate California crops to the tune of $937 million to $2.4 billion per year. That amounts to more than one-third of all pollination “services” to the state’s crops.
Many of those crop-pollinating wild bees live in rangelands – chiefly ranches that graze cattle.
“This means that preserving rangelands has significant economic value, not only to the ranchers who graze their cattle there, but also to farmers who need the pollinators,” said Claire Kremen, UC Berkeley associate professor of environmental science, policy and management,...