Foundation Plant Services

 These designs showcasing the 15th annual UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day will "draw you in."The BioDiv Committee recently sponsored a design contest and selected the two winners. They are....drum roll...Haylie Wilcox, a first-year master's degree student in the lab of Professor Neal Williams, a…

 A sweet collaboration!The California Master Beekeeper Program (CAMBP), based at UC Davis, and The HIVE Tasting Room and Kitchen in Woodland, have joined forces--sweet forces--to present two courses at The Hive:  the first is The Science of Honey Tasting  from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., on…

 Who's speaking at the winter seminars hosted by the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology?Marshall McMunn, coordinator of the seminars for the 2025-26 academic year, has announced the "spring list."All seminars will take place at 12:10 p.m. on Wednesdays  in 122 Briggs Hall. They also…

 What exciting research--fitting overwintering monarch butterflies with the newly developed ULTRALIGHT solar-powered radio tags to monitor their movements.Senior conservation biologist Emma Pelton of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation today announced in a news release that “Scientists are…

 Science matters. Science beckons. Science fulfills.The California All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory (CalATBI) is organizing a 2026 Student Insect Collection BioBlitz, a statewide community science effort to document our state's biodiversity.Organizers related:The goal: "To document California’s insect…

 Some folks wear their heart on their sleeves.Others wear a dragonfly on their chest.Newly arrived in the Bohart Museum of Entomology gift shop are dragonfly T-shirts."The dragonflies came in!" announced Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator of the Bohart Museum. "They look great." …

 It's "Friday Fly Day" but we haven't seen a drone fly (Eristalis tenax) for at least a month.It's a member of the hover fly family, Syrphidae, but it manages to appear almost everywhere as...a... bee. A drone is a drone is a drone. A bee is a bee is a bee. (Thank you, Gertrude Stein, who penned "A…

 Bees, wasps, flies, oh, my!Many non-insect enthusiasts often misidentify insects. A honey bee become a fly, a wasp becomes a bee, and a fly becomes a wasp or bee.So organizers of the Bohart Museum of Entomology's recent open house on  "Bees and Their Mimics" helped set the record straight…

 Congrats to Rithica! It's so great to see young scientists excel!Rithika Senthilkumar, an undergraduate research scholar in the UC Davis Vector Genetics Laboratory (VGL), School of Veterinary Medicine, has been awarded a highly competitive 2025 Promega D.O.O.R.S. (Development of Our Research…

The Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR) announced the launch of the Resilient Agriculture Finance and Insurance Research Collaborative, a research initiative to advance finance and insurance solutions…

The Unified Grant Management for Viticulture & Enology (UGMVE) is hosting requests for research proposals for FY 2026-2027 on behalf of five entities. Each agency has its own RFP that specifically explains their priorities and criteria:American Vineyard Foundation (AVF)California Grape Rootstock…

 Today (Tuesday) is Giving Day.Let's give to the honey bees. Or, rather, let's "give BACK" to the bees. Honey bees pollinate about one-third of our food supply, including fruits, vegetables and nuts. They also provide us with honey, beeswax and other products.To us, giving to the bees means giving…

 They are a special group of people--the people who receive the California State Beekeepers' Association's Eric Mussen Distinguished Service Award, launched in 2015.Eric Mussen (1944-2022), who served for 38 years as the UC Cooperative Extension apiculturist and member of the UC Davis Department of…

 Entomologist Jeff Smith, who curates the Lepidoptera collection at the Bohart Museum of Entomology at the University of California, Davis,  has just finished spreading the wings of a moth that has a 4mm wingspan."I've been concentrating for months on spreading our huge backlog of field pinned…

 When you sit down at your Thanksgiving table today, thank the bees.“A substantial portion of the meal is pollinated by the honey bee,” the late Extension Apiculturist Eric Mussen (1944-2022), a member of the UC Davis Department of Entomology faculty and a noted authority on honey bees, told us…

 How to keep honey bees healthy...UC Davis alumnus and Honey bee specialist Richard Martinez of the E. L. Niño lab will present his exit seminar, hosted by the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, on Wednesday, Dec. 3 in Room 122 of Briggs Hall.Martinez, who received his master's degree in…

 The incredible career and accomplishmenets of UC Davis Distinguished Professor Emerita Diane Ullman of the Department of Entomology and Nematology!She's featured in a newly released three-part video series produced by the UC Davis Emeriti Association in its ongoing video project to preserve the history…

 Noted honey bee geneticist Robert E. Page Jr.--he is retired from administrative positions at UC Davis and Arizona State University--won't be in the United States on Thanksgiving.He'll be at a book launch Nov. 27 at the Deutches Museum in Munich where he will deliver a public lecture on his book,  …

 One of the innovative and riveting games at the Bohart Museum of Entomology's recent open house on "Bees and Their Mimics" was "Bird Brain," created by UC Davis doctoral candidate Alexia "Lexie" Martin, a member of the lab of community ecologist Rachel Vannette, professor and vice chair of the UC Davis…